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THE PILGRIMS 



THE PILGRIMS 



BY 

FREDERICKS -A. NOBLE 

PASTOR EMERITUS OF UNION PAJK CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, CHICAGO 

AUTHOR OF " DIVINE LIFE IN MAN," " DISCOURSES ON PHILIP- 

PIANS," "OUR REDEMPTION," AND "TYPICAL 

NEW TESTAMENT CONVERSIONS" 



" The noblest ancestry that ever a people looked back to with love 
and reverence." — John G. Whittiek 



BOSTON 
THE PILGRIM PRESS 

NEW YORK CHICAGO 

1907 



i 






rUBRARY of C0NGF.E3SI1 
Two Ooplos Hetsvvoc 

DEC 3 !907 

i^er ///-,/ fa7 

'■''MM 



Copyrk/M, 1907 
By Luther H. Gary 



r/.^f^ 



i 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



TO 

EDWARD FRANKLIN WILLIAMS 

A FRIEND 

WHOSE FRIENDSHIP IS OF LONG STANDING 

AND 

TENDERLY CHERISHED 



PREFACE 

THE story of the Pilgrims is not merely a twice-told 
tale — it is a tale which has been told over and over. 
Historians renowned for their ability and learning, 
essayists distinguished for their literary skill, orators of 
the highest order, poets of world-wide fame, and patient 
chroniclers have all taken it in hand ; and not a few of the 
facts entering into the narrative are as familiar as 
household words. 

Of the earher writers, Bradford, Winslow, and the Mor- 
tons, along with what is found in Robinson's works and 
the records and laws of the colony, have supplied a fund 
of information, original and precious above all that any- 
body else can ever hope to contribute, towards our knowl- 
edge of this little Plymouth colony. Of the later writers, 
Hubbard, Prince, Young, Baylies, Thacher, Hunter, 
Davis, Cheever, Bacon, Elliott, the Dexters — three of 
them, the father, Henry Martyn Dexter, the son, Morton 
Dexter, and Professor Frankhn Bowditch Dexter of Yale 
College — Goodwin, Brown, Mackennal, Bartlett, Griffis, 
Arber, and Ames, besides historians like Hutchinson, Barry, 
Bancroft, Hildreth, and Palfrey, who have had to deal with 
the Pilgrims ; and many others, some of whom hke Neal, 
Campbell, Byington, Fiske, and Winsor, if not deahng 
directly with this subject, have yet dealt with subjects 
which led them to throw important side-lights upon it ; 
and biographers like Steele, who has written the life of 
Brewster, and O. S. Davis, who has made a fresh contribu- 
tion to our mass of Pilgrim literature in his recent book 
on Robinson, would seem to leave nothing unsaid which 
ought to be said. 



viii PREFACE 

Why then attempt to repeat for the hundredth time 
what has been so often and so well set forth by other and 
eminent authors? Why venture to multiply the volumes 
— so many and so attractive — which already enrich our 
libraries ? 

To be frank, it is a fascinating and glorious story to 
tell. It does one's own soul good to trace the footsteps, 
recount the experiences, and record the virtues of the heroic 
men and women who were identified with the movement which 
invested the Mayfloxver with an immortal interest, erected 
Plymouth Rock into a shrine of freedom — rehgious and 
civil aHke — and culminated in large bodies of churches 
self- regulating and independent of the State, and in our 
glorious republic. In the light of the fierce opposition 
they met, it is impossible to rehearse the incredible hard- 
ships which this dauntless band of hberty-lovers had to 
endure, the sublime steadiness with which they held to 
their faith and purpose, the loftiness of life and character 
which they illustrated, and the unique success with which 
their efforts were finally crowned, without arriving at a 
new conviction of the value both to the individual and the 
state of loyalty to conscience and a new confidence in the 
perpetual presence and guiding energy of God in human 
affairs. 

But this, though a sufficient warrant for weaving the 
facts into a web of connected narrative for one's own bene- 
fit, or for the benefit of small circles of friends, can hardly 
be advanced as a valid justification of publishing what may 
have been written. 

There were really two motives which led to the writing 
of this book. 

One was to gather and combine the leading facts, and 
the leading facts only, in the story of this remarkable 
group of men ; and then, with each fact falling into its own 
place, to present them in a form to be easily grasped and 
held in memory. 

Here in our land constant reference is made to the 
Pilgrims. Each succeeding generation has to learn anew 
and for itself who they were and what they did. For this, 
students in our higher grades in schools and colleges have 



PREFACE ix 

ample opportunity. Boys and girls, however, whose school- 
days have been few, and young men and women whose lives 
are largely spent in stores and mills, and not infrequently 
members of reading circles and study classes of the more 
ambitious sort, require an account of this advance-guard 
of our free institutions which is so simple and direct that 
it can be easily mastered. Many years of intimate asso- 
ciation with just such learners as are here described, and 
of efforts to familiarize them with the main features of 
early New England history, have shown the indispensable- 
ness of books, which, while not losing sight of the proper 
chronological order, yet put those events and incidents and 
movements, which are of the same class and are naturally 
affiliated, together, and bring them before the eye at a 
single sitting and in their entirety. This applies more 
especially to the leading facts in the experience of the col- 
ony on this side of the water. For example, one who wishes 
to know how the Pilgrims treated the Indians, how they 
managed to meet the expenses of their migration and work 
free from debt, what kind of schools they had and when 
they started them, how they organized and maintained 
their churches, what sort of government they instituted 
and what was the spirit of their legislation, or anything 
else which was of vital concern to them and is of interest to 
those who live after them, ought to have the information 
laid before him in a compact and duly articulated form. 
To the degree to which it seemed permissible this plan has 
been carried out in this volume. 

The other motive was a conviction that the movement of 
which these men were the exponents ought to be set forth 
in an interpretative way. Macaulay says that " facts are 
the mere dross of history," and that " the writer who does 
not explain the phenomena as well as state them performs 
only one half of his oflBce." 

The Pilgrims were a simple folk, but they stood for a 
great and sacred cause. In all history there are few acts 
of men so freighted with significance as the coming from 
the Old World to the New of this little band of English 
exiles. Who were these exiles.? How came they to be? 
What was the cause which they espoused.'' Were their 



X PREFACE 

principles and actions principles and actions for which it 
was worth while to suffer and make sacrifices? Exactly 
what, in fine, were their contributions to the progress of 
society? These are questions which may well be asked. 
They are questions, too, which ought to be met with wise 
and stimulating answers. Facts speak louder than words ; 
but facts speak loudest when words are used to place them 
in their true light and give them their proper emphasis. 
Names and dates, causes and consequences, relations of 
parties and successions of events are important. But in 
the instance of these men, whose comprehension of hberty 
both for Church and State was so advanced, and whose 
devotion to duty was so sublime, it is a thousandfold more 
important to catch their spirit and answer back to their 
lives with lives set aflame and kindled to white heat with 
religious zeal, patriotic devotion, and unswerving loyalty 
to conscience by their example. It was with the purpose 
and in the hope of doing something in this direction that 
the work now completed was undertaken. 

These, then, were the ends in view in this fresh attempt 
to tell the story of the Pilgrims. My own conclusions will 
be stated freely, but little space will be given to clearing 
up controverted points in history and setthng debated 
questions. All facts and incidents which appear to be of 
sufficient importance to lend interest to the recital, or throw 
light on men and movements, have been given a place in the 
body of the narrative. For these reasons it has been 
thought better not to burden the pages of the book with 
foot-notes and references. It would be too much to claim, 
or to expect, that no mistakes have been made in the trans- 
fer of statements by other authors, or in the apprehension 
in every instance of the precise intent and meaning of what 
somebody else has said ; but the utmost care has been taken 
to make all quotation marks tell the truth, and to treat 
views differing from my own with the courtesy and candor 
to which all honest opinions are entitled. 

It remains to bear testimony to the deep personal satis- 
faction which the preparation of this volume has brought 
into my own Hfe, and to express the trust that this new set- 
ting of the story of the trials and triumphs of our Fathers, 



PREFACE xi 

however imperfect and inadequate it may be found, may 
interest persons here and there who otherwise would not 
have pursued studies along this hne, and so would have 
missed the inspiration which comes from intelhgent and 
sympathetic contact with heroic souls. A more complete 
surrender to the influence of these men and to the ideas 
and aims for which they stood is, in my judgment, a con- 
summation devoutly to be wished. For in these times and 
under present tendencies the thing which we have least to 
fear is too much enthusiasm for Plymouth Rock. 

F. A. NOBLE. 

EvANSTON, III,, May 1, 1907. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

I The Way opened for the Pilgrims .... 1 

Wj'cliffe and the Lollards — The English Bible— Incoming of 
Dutch artisans — Holland an object lesson — Divine influences 
abroad — Temper of the times. 

II Persecution a Factor in Making the Pilgrims 17 

Nature of the Reformation in England — Discontent and conflict 

— Explanation of Elizabeth's strange conduct — How injustice 
and oppression helped. 

III The Pioneers of the Pilgrims 31 

Hooper and his martyrdom — Thomas Cartwright and his ser- 
vices — Robert Browne — His merits and his tarnished fame. 

IV The Pilgrims at Scrooby 51 

A sign of the times — Scrooby — The old manor house — A 
marked Providence — Names of leaders — Clyfton — Brewster 

— Bradford — Robinson — Other exiles — The explanation of 
these men. 

V The Escape to Holland 83 

How the Scrooby Nonconformists were treated — Resolution to 
leave and hindrances met — Effort to reach Holland successful. 

VI Experiences at Amsterdam 95 

Reasons for going to Amsterdam — Amsterdam held out promise 
of livelihood — English-speaking people already at Amsterdam 

— Smitten and exiled believers brought together — Why Pil- 
grims left Amsterdam — Francis Johnson — John Smyth — 
Henry Ainsworth — Strong desire to keep together — Petition 
for leave to settle at Leyden. 

VII The Pilgrims at Leyden 113 

Leyden — History of the town — The university — Finding 
homes in Leyden — Settling down to work — Locations chosen 

— Newcomers : Carver, Winslow, Brewer, Allerton, Cushman, 
Fuller, Standish — Books printed and controversies stirred up 



xiv CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

— Kobinson in great debate — Further activity of Robinson — 
Marriages, citizenship, interest in religious questions — Church 
polity — Life at Leyden helpful. 

VIII Leaving Leyden 145 

Removal contemplated — Deciding where they should go — How 
obtain means to carry out their plan — Solicitations by the Dutch 

— Thomas Weston and the Merchant Adventurers — Articles of 
agreement — Disheartening change in articles — Side-lights 
thrown on the Pilgrims — Preliminary points settled — Tender 
religious services. 

IX Crossing the Ocean 169 

Disappointment, delay, and loss — Ready to sail — Robinson's 
letter — Further hindrances and disappointments — Off at last 
— Accessions to the colony : Martin, Mullins, Hopkins, Alden — 
The Mayflower — Trying experiences — Shadow and sunshine 

— Off Cape Cod — Where to land — Safe at anchor. 

X An Eventful Month 193 

The Mayflower Compact — Seeking a site for settlement — The 
first exploration — The second exploration — The third explo- 
ration — A significant observance of the Sabbath — Setting foot 
on the famous rock — From Cape Cod to Plymouth. 

XI The First Winter 221 

Choosing a site for building — Beginning to build — Plan of town 

— Sickness and death — Causes of sickness — Sufferings of 
survivors — A common experience of colonies — Shows stuff 
of which the Pilgrims were made — Mishaps and narrow escapes 

— Return of the Mayflower. 

XII Making a Living 241 

The supply producing force — More discipline in store — Help ob- 
tained — The trying period — Embarrassing accessions — Aban- 
doning planting in common — An alarming drought — New 
industrial scheme justified — Lived simply — Cattle brought 
to the colony — Health and long life. 

XIII Paying their Debts 261 

Why in debt — Amount of indebtedness difficult to ascertain — 
First complaints at delay in remittances — First remittance and 
what came of it — A second remittance — Other futile attempts 
to make returns — A new financial basis necessary — The new 
agreement — New arrangement inspires hope — Financial and 
other readjustments — Taught to use wampum for currency 

— Expanding their trade — Debt increased by bringing over 



CONTENTS XV 

Chapter Page 

Lej'den associates — Helpful accessions to the colony: Timothy 
Hatherlj', William Thomas, John Jenney, Thomas Willet — 
Free at last. 

XIV Relatiovs with the Indians 287 

Feared ferocity of the savages — Providential preparation for 
coming of the Pilgrims — A startling introduction — Samoset's 
welcome — Some account of Samoset — Squanto — Massasoit — 
Deputation visits Massasoit — Startling rumors — Massasoit and 
others invited to visit colony — Clouds in the sky — Weston's 
colonj' — Blood must be shed — The Pilgrims just and kind to 
the Indians. 

XV Fostering the Church 323 

The two branches one — The first meeting-house — Brewster's 
ministry — The Bible used — A minister in prospect— Con- 
spiracy of Lyford and Oldam— Rev. Ralph Smith — Roger 
Williams at Plymouth — Seeking a successor to Smith — 
Charles Chauncey at Plymouth — A minister found at length 

— Incidents of interest— The problem of church extension — 
Other ministers and churches — Ralph Partridge — Ichabod 
Wiswell — Nicholas Street. 

XVI Setting up Schools 351 

First mention of training the young — Schools started early — 
Legislation on school question — Claim the first free school — 
Free schools a glorious achievement. 

XVII Development of their Laws 361 

Government simple at the outset — Revision and codification of 
laws needed — System of laws adopted — Declaration of rights 

— Some of the specific laws of the code — Other forms of pun- 
ishment — Change to representative government — Jealous of 
rights — Freemen — Voting a sacred trust — Fines for refusing 
to hold office — Laws were growths. 

XVIII Witches and Quakers 379 

Belief in witchcraft universal — Only two cases — Trouble with 
the Quakers — Why alarmed — First law against Quakers — 
Further enactments — First instance of punishment — Other 
instances — No Quaker put to death — Stopped by the king. 

XIX Confederation of the Colonies 393 

The colonies which came into the tinion — The basis of union — 
New articles of union — Value of union to Plymouth — Settled 
claims to disputed territory —Incidental benefits — Stress on 
local rights, opportunity to show ability — Training secured for 
future needs. 



xvi CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

XX The War with Philip 409 

Causes of the war — Philip — Indian ranks greatly reduced — 
Part taken by Christian Indians — Course of the war — War 
swept back into Plymouth — End of war in sight — Result of 
the war. 

XXI The Closing Years 425 

Andros and his administration — Timely relief — An edifying 
spectacle — Plymouth united to Massachusetts — A consum- 
mation to be desired. 

XXII Lessons Taught by the Pilgrims .... 435 

Had exalted views of God — Had a positive and earnest religion 
— Laid great stress on righteous character — Emphasized civic 
duties — Sensitively alive to the future. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Plymouth Rock Frontispiece ^ 

Manor House, Scrooby Facing page 58 ^ 

Bradford Cottage, Austerfield „ « 72 •' 

The Church in Austerfield „ ,,72 

The Little Street of the Brownists, Amsterdam „ „ 100 '' 

In Amsterdam » „ 1^0 

John Robinson's House, Leyden, Holland . . „ „ 136 ' 
The Departure of the Pilgrims from Delfshaven, 

July, 1620 „ „ 168 

Plymouth in l622 „ ,,228^ 

The Pilgrim Monument, Plymouth „ „ 44.6 



I 

THE WAY OPENED FOR THE PH^GRIMS 



'I'lic ii(inilH iif iru'ii Imviiiji^ Ixvii j)rcp(in-(l luTon-liiiiiil, luil only by IIk; 
vvriliii^CN of Wy<'lin<' niitl llic iiiiii'l y rdoiii iil' liiiss iiiul .Icroiix-, liiil iilso l>y 
the new iin|Hi1.<i<- /ind iii(lc|i<-ii(l(-ii(-c which hiiil Ix-cii ).v>V('ii lo Ihoiifrhl in 
(-()ii.sci|iini(-<- ol' Ihc revival of lnii-iiiii^; llicii in |»n»u;rcNs ; mid hy ||i<r 
(■xi'il<-in(-nl which Ihc diNC(>v<'ry ol' ii new world, imd of new p.illis and 
regions (or coniinen'c, Imd ."iin-ciid over h'.nrope ; /ind Ihc invciilion of 
pi'Miliiifr which provided ii new insl rnnienlidil y for Ihc dilliiNion ol' luiowl- 
cd|j;e iind Ihc proinolion of I'n'c <-nipiiry only a I'cw yciirs eliiii.Hcd Croni 
lh<- Innc when l.nlher in Ihc I Inivcrsily of Wil lenhnr)^, nnd /wiiij^li in 
IIk* eiilhednil of /iirieh, ininle Iheir llrsl cHorls, hd'orc nil l<',nrop<; 
vviiH convulsed wilh Ihc prof^rcss of u greiil, iMleilecliiHl luid moral 
eni.'nici|>iilion. Ijionaim) Macon. 

The proc;r<-:N of Ihc KcCorni.'d ion in ricnnnny, l)y llie ijrcacliinfi^ of 
Liilhcr, IMel.'nichlhon, and olhcrs, wilh Ihc nnndx-r of hooks Ihal were 
pnltliMhcd in Ihosc p;irls, some of which were Iraiislatcd inio l'',nglisli, 
revived Icarnin;';. and laiscd people's curioslly lo look inlo the ulaU^ of 
religion here n\ home. Danii:!, Nh;Ai.. 

The melhod of Troviih-nec in hislory is ncviT man'ieid. In propor- 
tion lo Ihc maj^nitnde of Ihc calaslroi)he arc Ihc lcn|j,ili of lime and Ihc 
variety of afCcnei<'M which an- employed in pro<hiciiif;C 'I- l''.vents, heeansc; 
llicy arc nncxpcclcd ami nIiu'I linfjf, are not lo he ascribed merely lo some 
proximate aiilccedenl. Hut . . . we miisl lake into account the personid 
ipiaiilics and lh<- plastic a).^ency of in<livi(luals not less than the operations 
of )',»"i>'"i'"l causes. ICspecially if a revolution in lon)< <-slal)lishcd opinions 
an<i haliibi of f<'eliiif^ is lo lidic pl.icr, there must be individuals to rally 
upon : men of pow<-r who are able lo create and sustain in othi'rs a n»"W 
iMtmd life wiiieii lliey iiave first reali/.cd in lliemselves. 

(JKoiKii: 1*. KiHiiiat. 



I he lilfj^rims 



TUK WAY OPENED FOR THE PILGRIMS 

Tlll'i Piirilun WJis Ijcforc \\w Pil^riiri. 'V\n'. Piirifan 
wuH tin; first sta^e in I lie (Icvclojjinont of tlio I'il^rriin, 
— the blossom of wFiich the Pilf^rirn was the fruit. 
Not all Puritans were Pilgrims; but, sjjcakinf^ in general, 
all Pilgrims were Puritans. 'I'liere was an arrested Puri- 
tanisin, — a Puritanism which, instead of [)assing over into 
Separatism, became bitter against it and did all in its power 
to thwart its aims ; but Puritanism in the sense of aspira- 
tion for more holiness of character, for larger freedom of 
direct personal access to (iod, and for o[)f)()rtunity for 
wider usefulness in s[)reading abroad a knowledge of the 
trutli as it is in .lesus, and informing society with the rules 
and habits of righteousness, was the soil out of which the 
Pilgrim spr/mg. I'uritanism, non-conformity, separatism, 
exile, — j)artly (•nf<jrced and j)artly voluntary, — tli(!se were 
the successive degrees through which those men passed who 
began by wanting things sweeter and better in the (Jhurch 
in their own home-land, and who ended by going away and 
j)lantlng in a foreign larirl a church which tliey conceived to 
be more nearly in confoririity with the plan and spirit of the 
gosp(;l. 

Had there not been first a Puritan there would have been 
no Pilgrim to write a new chapter in the story of ('hris- 
tianlty and human j)rf)gress. Had there been no Pilgrim 
to em[)hasize with heroic daring and large sacrifice his sense 
of the need of reformation in the conduct of religious life 
and in the management of ecclesiastical affairs, Puritanism, 
in all probability, would have been like one of those western 



4 THE PILGRIMS 

streams which starts in the mountains, and is clear and 
vigorous in its flow for a while, but before it reaches the 
ocean is lost in the sands. 

It is not easy to fix definitely upon the beginnings of 
Puritanism. It is easy to trace the influences which led 
up to it, — easy to detect signs of its approach, even as 
one can detect signs of the coming spring while it is yet 
winter, — but just who were the first Puritans, and just 
where Puritanism first began to round out into shape, are 
fields of quest which slope back into the mists of the un- 
explored and uncertain. 



The truth uttered by Wycliffe, so long before the great 
German Reformer had acted his part in the sublime drama 

of human progress, baffled and arrested though 
"Wycliffe [i was, never lost its hold on the English mind, 
and the The hght shed by WycHffe, who with justice 

Lollards has been called " The Morning Star of the 

Reformation," obstructed and refracted though 
it was, never wholly faded out of the English sky. The 
seed scattered by Wycliffe, who was following the Master 
in His spiritual husbandry, trodden underfoot though it 
was by the iron hoof of blind persecution, never ceased 
to hold in it a germinating power. From Wycliffe's time 
on Puritanism was in the air. It was the pollen with 
which the wind was fertihzing religious thought. By a 
subtle chemistry of growth it was persistently pushing its 
way through a thousand rootlets into the new and expand- 
ing hfe of the nation. Like leaven in the lump, for a hun- 
dred years and more before Henry snatched the church of 
his realm from the greedy and defiling hand of the pope 
that he might bruise and besmear it in his own clumsy grasp, 
the message which Wycliffe declared from his rediscovered 
Bible had been quietly working in the mental processes and 
spiritual aspirations of the most devout of the people. Wy- 
cliffe planted the tree that bore the fruit — so nourishing to 
life — which subsequent generations plucked and ate. The 
time came when, worn and weary and ready for the " Well 



THE PILGRIMS 5 

done " which awaits faithful souls on the threshold of the 
life beyond, he had to lay aside his harp and sweep its chords 
no more ; but other hands took up the instrument and touched 
its strings to a music which at length thrilled the hearts of 
his countrymen and stirred them to such high endeavor 
that they were enabled to achieve moral and spiritual victo- 
ries not alone for themselves, but for the world. Though 
dead, with ashes desecrated and borne by Avon to Severn, 
and from Severn to the sea, this brave prophet of the Most 
High still maintained his hold on life, and, with a voice 
which no pope or potentate could hush, kept on speaking 
to the mind and moral sense of thoughtful Englishmen. 
The little candle which he lighted was a candle of the 
Lord, and it sent its beams afar. It is but a blind eye 
which can look on the Puritan and not see Wycliffe behind 
him. 

The direct endeavors of Wycliffe were greatly reinforced, 
and his personal influence was vastly extended by the bands 
of preachers, known as Lollards, who went forth to empha- 
size the truths which their great leader had brought out 
afresh from the Word of God, and to advocate the reforms 
which he had set in motion. These strolling " mumblers,** 
" clad," as another has described them, " in long robes of 
coarse red wool, barefoot, with pilgrim staff in hand," going 
up and down, " setting forth the Word of God wherever they 
could find listeners," distributing hand-copied " passages 
from Wycliffe's tracts and texts from the Bible among 
tradesmen and artisans, yeomen and plough-boys, to be 
pondered over and talked about and learned by heart," 
made a deep and lasting impression on large numbers of the 
common people. They were not men of the schools, but 
they were men with a message, and their words set sensible 
people to pondering, to looking about, to asking questions, 
and to reaching conclusions which meant sooner or later 
a better condition of things in church and state. They 
popularized the teachings of Wycliffe. They stamped the 
truths which he uttered into the minds of the more thought- 
ful in the communities in which they labored in a fashion 
to make them the heritage of succeeding generations. 
Where these preachers went, and were in a measure wel- 



6 THE PILGRIMS 

corned, later reformers found the soil prepared for their 
sowing. 

This is the view commonly held by all well-informed 
writers on the subject. The late Dr. Mackennal, in his 
exceedingly interesting and instructive little book on " Eng- 
hsh Separatism," says that the counties over which the 
influence of Lollardy extended are almost exactly the coun- 
ties in which martyrs suffered under Mary. He says 
further that these " were the counties where Puritanism 
was subsequently strong," and that the " Home counties, 
with Suffolk and Norfolk, where the martyr-roll is most 
crowded, are the counties where Separatism had its origin." 
Maps have been published which make good this claim and 
show clearly the coincidence of the boundaries which mark 
the sowing of the Wychffe ideas and the reaping of Puritan 
convictions and deeds. 

II 

The Bible, too, given to the people in their own tongue, 
first in parts and then in its entirety, by those worthy 
successors of Wycliffe, Coverdale and Tyndale, 
The Eng- ]^^j g^ subtle but very effective influence in 
lish Bible shaping and forcing the issue which resulted 
in the advanced Protestantism of the out-and- 
out Puritan. 

The great writers who have had to do with the develop- 
ment of letters in the nation have not failed to recognize 
the formative influence of the English Bible on English 
literature. John Fiske has an illuminating passage on the 
value to the people at that particular period in the history 
of the country of the " most original and noble literature " 
which was unfolded to them in the translations of the 
Scriptures into the English tongue. " At a time when 
there was yet no English literature for the common people, 
this untold wealth of Hebrew literature was implanted in 
the English mind as in virgin soil." Our author is right 
in adding that it was a matter of vast consequence " that 
the first truly popular literature in England — the first 
which stirred the hearts of all classes of people, and filled 



THE PILGRIMS 7 

their minds with ideal pictures and their every-day speech 
with apt and telHng phrases — was the Hterature comprised 
within the Bible." " To the Enghshmen who listened to 
Latimer, to the Scotchmen who listened to Knox, the Bible 
more than filled the place which in modern times is filled 
by poem and song, by novel and newspaper and scientific 
treatise." 

But the Bible brought within the reach of the people did 
more than create a taste and furnish inspiration for a match- 
less hterature. It became a system of practical ethics. Men 
discovered in it an authoritative standard of right conduct. 
It was a revelation from God, and reading it, the more de- 
vout and earnest souls felt that they were catching the ac- 
cents of a divine voice. It was not thought alone which 
was touched and quickened, it was life. Literature, it may 
be said again, is a potent factor in shaping the character 
of any people. A high-toned hterature helps very greatly 
to make a high-toned nation. Still, incalculable as was 
the value to literature of the Bible, rendered into their 
mother-tongue and made easily accessible through the 
translations of Coverdale and Tyndale — successful work- 
ers in the same fertile field — its value to the English 
people as a regenerating moral and spiritual force was 
yet greater. At once it became a vital and uplifting 
power. Men were taken back in their thoughts to the 
divine image in which they were created, and given a 
fresh sense of the rights and privileges of the indi- 
vidual as well as new notions of the duties and obli- 
gations of lawmakers and rulers. With the Bible open 
to everybody who cared to read it, or who could be in- 
duced to read it, the old conditions were no longer 
possible. There was then, as there is now and always, 
a silent but tremendous transforming energy in an open 
Bible. 

An open Bible is a risen sun, and the potency and prom- 
ise of an expanding intelligence are in its beams. An open 
Bible is a proclamation of liberty ; and men who read it 
will become more and more impatient of all restraints im- 
posed on conscience and the free exercise of natural rights. 
Tyrants who wish to be secure in the practise of tyranny 



8 THE PILGRIMS 

do well to withhold the Bible from the hands of their out- 
raged subjects. Oppressors who find their pleasure and 
profit in grinding the faces of the poor are wise with the 
wisdom of their kind in keeping the Bible a closed book. 
Unlike Tyndale, who went through the sharp pains of mar- 
tyrdom, Coverdale died in peace; but the open Bible, dis- 
trusted and opposed as it was by so many who ought to 
have been its advocates, survived and kept on its way with 
an energy that was irresistible. 

Ill 

There were still other influences at work toward the same 
end. Some of these, coming in from the outside and blend- 
ing with those which had a home origin, were exceedingly 
effective in the making of the Puritan, and after him the 
Nonconformist, the Separatist, and the Pilgrim. 

Dr. Griffis is surely right in his strenuous 
Incoming contention that reform ideas, in one fashion and 
of Dutch another, were imported from across the North 
artisans gg^ into the more northern, the middle eastern, 

and the southern counties of England, and were 
potent factors in determining the events which followed. 
Not so early, not so subtle, not so pervasive as the influ- 
ences which proceeded from the Oxford Reformer and those 
who entered into the sacred inheritance of his thought and 
aim, yet the influences which came to the shores of England 
from Holland were not only timely but to an eminent degree 
helpful. 

For one thing there was a free intermingling of Dutch 
and English during those years which more immediately 
preceded the definite sohdifying of Puritan sentiment which 
was immensely effective in stimulating thought and shaping 
opinion. Dr. Griffis condenses the facts into a single para- 
graph when he says : " With ten thousand English, Welsh, 
Irish, and Scottish soldiers, fighting under the red, white, 
and blue flag of the republic ; thousands of British contrac- 
tors, merchants, traders, and agents in the Low Countries, 
and a hundred thousand Netherlanders, mostly educated 
people and skilled workmen, in the British Isles, relations 



THE PILGRIMS 9 

between England and Holland were close and varied." 
One can see at a glance that it could not be otherwise. 

Referring to this same line of facts Professor Williston 
Walker says : " These radical EngHsh efforts for a com- 
plete reformation had their chief support in the Eastern 
Counties, especially in the vicinity of Norwich and London. 
These regions had long been the recipient of Dutch immi- 
gration; and the influx from the Netherlands had vastly 
increased during the early reign of Elizabeth, owing to the 
tyranny of Phihp II. In 1562 the Dutch and Walloons 
settled in England numbered 30,000. By 1568 some 5225 
of the people of London were of this immigration ; and by 
1587 they constituted more than half of the population 
of Norwich, while they were largely present in other coast 
towns." 

Ehzabeth made the relation between these foreigners and 
her own people still more close than it might have been 
otherwise by requiring each Netherland family " to take 
an English apprentice, so that the country might imme- 
diately get the benefit of continental superiority in science, 
art and handicraft." 

Many of these cunning artisans, it is fair to presume, 
entertained advanced views on the question of freedom in 
church and state. Close association with them would have 
no inconsiderable force in shaping the aspirations and aims 
of men whose leanings were in the direction of notions quite 
other than those held by subservient secretaries and time- 
serving prelates. Minds ripe for change could not help 
being hurried to their conclusions, or, if their conclusions 
had been already reached, confirmed in them by this intimate 
intercourse with people who were from the other side of the 
German Ocean, and who had experienced all the bitterness 
and pain of an inquisitorial persecution. At the loom, by 
the bench, and in the foundry, within the narrow homes 
where manufacturing was carried on, there must have 
been many simple conversations on the same high topics 
which engaged Luther's attention and of which Calvin 
wrote and Milton was to sing. 



10 THE PILGRIMS 



IV 

But in the course of time there was something more than 
this. When these eastern and southern county Enghsh- 
men Hfted their eyes and looked beyond the 
Holland North Sea into the Netherlands they saw 

an object- sights to stir the blood and kindle the soul 
lesson into a blaze of enthusiasm. So soon as the 

bigoted and cruel Spaniard had been brought 
to halt by the indomitable courage and heroic obstinacy of 
the freedom-loving Dutch, or from the latter part of the 
sixteenth century onward, Holland granted toleration — 
not the widest, but enough for all practical purposes — to 
the different sects within her borders. Examples were also 
afforded, especially by the Anabaptists, of churches govern- 
ing themselves and settling policies and aims to suit their 
own ideas of rights and duties and to meet the needs of the 
hour. 

As to Anabaptist influence in shaping the ideas of early 
English Congregationalists, Professor Walker does not 
appear to be willing to go so far as some others go and 
yet he does not hesitate to make this statement : " Among 
the workmen of Holland Anabaptist views were widely dis- 
seminated, and while it would be unjustifiable to claim 
that these exiles on Enghsh soil were chiefly, or largely, 
Anabaptists, there were Anabaptists among them, and an 
Anabaptist way of thinking may not improbably have been 
widely induced among those who may have been entirely 
unconscious of the source from which their impulse came. 
Certainly the resemblances between the Anabaptist move- 
ments on the Continent and English Congregationalism 
in theories of church polity, and the geographical possibili- 
ties of contact between the two, are sufficiently manifest to 
make a denial of relationship exceedingly difficult." 

In that land, too, a man might think aloud. If he chose 
to do so he might put his thoughts into tracts and books. 
It was a land of the free as well as a home of the brave. To 
intelligent, sincere, and earnest onlookers, only a short dis- 
tance away, who were disloyal neither to king nor country 



THE PILGRIMS 11 

nor religion, but who wished simply to be permitted to think 
their own thoughts, to be faithful to their own best concep- 
tions of truth and service, to worship God according to the 
dictates of their own consciences, and without let or hin- 
drance to publish and exchange views on the compelling 
themes of God and man, of duty and destiny, and whatever 
else has to do with human welfare, what must all this have 
meant? The question answers itself. Enghshmen of the 
worthier sort, observing this condition of things, must have 
felt like captives, closely confined and breatliing the foul air 
of a prison, while their more fortunate fellows were out in 
the open sunshine with liberty to come and go at will. Hol- 
land was a school in which men of bright minds like Brew- 
ster, whether going there as he did, or not, would learn 
much and fast. The laws and institutions of Holland were 
an object-lesson in civil and religious liberty ; and the Eng- 
lish were not few who were instructed by the great and 
obvious teaching. 



It must not be forgotten, moreover, that this whole 

movement which resulted first in the Puri- 

Divine in- ^^n, and later in the Pilgrim, was under 

fluences g^ providential guidance. With the pene- 

abroad tration and grasp of a true prophet, Lowell 

sings : 

" We see but half the causes of our deeds, 
Seeking them wholly in the outer life. 
And heedless of the encircling spirit-world 
Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us 
All germs of pure and world-wide purposes." 

The Spirit of God brooded over the minds of these men 
as over the old chaos, and gave form to their thought and 
direction to their aims. Their eyes were focused on the 
advancing dawn, and beams of the new day were poured in 
upon their minds. The Scriptures were illuminated to 
their understanding, and they came to know the things of 
life and duty at first hand. They had clear vision because 
they had open vision, and saw things in the " light of the 



12 THE PILGRIMS 

knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 
They had stout hearts because they were inwardly girded 
by the Almighty. Abraham and the people whom he or- 
ganized into a nation can be explained only by a call whis- 
pered from on high. We shall never comprehend Moses 
and the work of emancipation which he accomplished until 
we interpret him by the burning bush. Paul is a riddle 
which no man can guess until proper significance is at- 
tached to the splendor which smote him to the earth and the 
Voice which spoke to him there at the gate of Damascus. 
The Pilgrim caught his deepest and finest inspiration from 
God; and the key which unlocks and exposes the secret 
of what he was and what he did is the complete way in which 
he allowed the Spirit to enter all the chambers of his soul 
and direct and dominate his life. 



VI 

Along with the forces and influences here specified, or 
rather including both them and many others, there was a 
temper of the times, slowly but surely emerg- 
Temper of jjjg out of all the passionate longings and 
the times confused wrestling of the period, which was 
in ill accord with the old traditions and 
usages, and which clearly foretokened a new order of 
things. There was " the sound of marching in the tops 
of the mulberry-trees " which indicated the approach of a 
host to be reckoned with by the enemies of truth and 
righteousness and a conflict which should shake the land. 
Oliver Cromwell had not yet come in sight, but he was near 
at hand, and the obstinate Stuart d3aiasty which had in- 
herited the fatal legacy of lust of dominion and " divine 
right of kings " from the past was to topple to its fall. 
The songs of Chaucer, as well as the sermons of W^ycliffe, 
long dormant and for a hundred years apparently forgot- 
ten, were recurring with a fresh energy to the minds of men, 
and " the brawney hunt-loving monk," " the wanton friar," 
" the pardoner with his wallet ' bret full of pardons, come 
from Rome all hot,' " were losing caste in the public 
estimation. 



THE PILGRIMS 13 

It was only natural that restlessness among the people 
and opposition to the insufferable conditions then existing 
should be more pronounced with reference to ecclesiastical 
misrule and oppression than with reference to civil tyranny. 
There had been democracy in Greece, and Rome was once a 
republic in name, and central and western Europe had 
known free cities, and a commonwealth fed and fostered 
by the bracing air of Switzerland had sprung up in the 
later times at Geneva ; but a search of the centuries re- 
vealed no great and commanding examples of civil affairs 
directed by the people and for the people. There had been 
eminently wise and patriotic heads of nations, like Alfred 
and Charlemagne, though the achievements of these men 
and their contributions to an enduring civilization were not 
so well known in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as now ; 
but there were no illustrious sovereigns who had been made 
sovereigns by the free and intelligent choice of their sub- 
jects, and who, thus chosen, had administered public affairs 
solely in the interest of their subjects, to whom it was pos- 
sible to point in the assurance that their just and benefi- 
cent reigns would stand out in marked contrast to the 
prevailing customs of kings and emperors. 

But so soon as the Bible was placed within reach of the 
people, and men began to read and weigh its statements 
for themselves, it was seen how wide had been the departure 
in the management of ecclesiastical affairs from the primi- 
tive ideas and methods. What a gulf of difference the com- 
parison revealed between selfish and unholy priests, between 
bishops and archbishops and popes with their greeds and 
ambitious and countless political intrigues, and the divine 
Master, surrounded and followed by the apostles whom he 
called about liim and sent out to do his work ! How unlike 
in its spirit and rules and aims had the Church of the later 
times come to be to the Church of the early times ! Peter 
and Paul and James and John were not stall-fed bishops ; 
and though they spoke with authority they did not attempt 
to lord it over God's heritage. There came to be a convic- 
tion, wide-spread, deep-seated, and which was all the time 
increasing in intensity, that reform, even in spheres where 
some measure of reform had been effected, was still de- 



14 THE PILGRIMS 

manded and must be made more radical and thoroughgoing. 
The high business in which WycHife and Huss and Luther 
engaged had not been carried on to completeness ; and so 
long, on the one hand, as hberty of conscience was denied to 
sincere and devout souls, and so long, on the other hand, as 
the men who held ecclesiastical positions were so ignorant 
and stupid that they could not teach, or were so extor- 
tionate and shamelessly corrupt that their lives were a cruel 
mockery of the faith which they avowed and a sore hin- 
drance to the advance of Christianity, agitation must be 
kept up and aggressive movements continued and vital 
issues forced. 

At the same time the prevailing discontent was not con- 
fined to religious circles, nor did it all originate with men 
who wanted a better chance to show their loyalty to Jesus 
Christ in worship and in work. The charter obtained from 
King John at Runnymede was not only an inspiring mem- 
ory but a living fact. Down to the reign of Henry VI, 
that great instrument of liberty had been confirmed thirty- 
seven times. Its three leading provisions — that no freeman 
should be arraigned and imprisoned except in accordance 
with custom or the law of the realm, that justice was 
neither to be sold nor withheld, and that taxes were to be 
imposed only by the consent and authority of Parhament — 
in the thought of the most intelligent and patriotic and 
freedom-loving of the people had become foundation- 
stones of the civil structure of the English nation. Man in 
the dignity and power of his simple manhood was moving to 
the front. The rights of man were acquiring new recogni- 
tion and sacredness. The terrific struggle which had taken 
place in Holland was a thought-breeder, and in elect souls 
throughout Europe it kindled new or revived old aspirations 
for freedom and self-government. 

Hence the restlessness and discontent in both church and 
state, and the launching of the controversy, which had its 
origin in the religious dissatisfaction and aspiration of the 
people, into the surging sea of national politics. At bottom 
the question of Puritanism was spiritual and ecclesiastical ; 
but because of the organic relation of church and state in 
England it had to be wrought out and settled in the arena 



THE PILGRIMS 15 

of party controversy. There was no wit or force to arrest 
the conflict. The hour was ripe for a radical change in the 
management of ecclesiastical and civil affairs alike, and a 
step forward was necessary to the peace and prosperity of 
the EngHsh nation and the progress of mankind. 



II 



PERSECUTION A FACTOR IN MAKING THE 
PILGRIMS 



It seems to be a law of human natiire that no evil is arrested till it becomes 
unbearable. — Chables W. Elliott. 

O foolish people, ye that think to bum 

And to consume the truth of God, I tell you 

That every flame is a loud tongue of fire 

To publish it abroad to all the world 

Louder than tongues of men. — Hen"BT W. Longfellow. 

This is the secret of the opposition of the English Church to Puritanism 
and Independence. The Church, like that of Rome, had \'irtually assumed 
its own infaUibility. ... It had interwoven the hierarchy with the whole 
temporal Constitution of the realm. And the test of loyalty was unde\'iating 
conformity to the canons of the Church and implicit obedience to the mandates 
of the crown. — John Stetson Barbt. 

By no artifice of ingenuity can the stigma of persecution, the worst 
blemish of the English Chiux^h, be effaced or patched over. Her doctrines, 
we well know, do not tend to intolerance. She admits the possibUitj- of 
salvation out of her own pale. But this circiunstance, in itself honorable 
to her, aggravates the sin and the shame of those who persecuted in her 
name. — Thomas Babington Macaulat. 

Few people are wise enough to leam the economic value of justice. 

BooKEB T. Washington. 

So shall the world go on. 
To good malignant, to bad men benign ; 
L'nder her own weight groaning ; till the day 
Appear of respiration to the just 
And vengeance to the wicked. — John Milton. 



II 

PERSECUTION A FACTOR IN MAKING THE 
PILGRIMS 

THE story of the making of the Pilgrims is yet to be 
told. For what has gone before has to do simply 
with the diffusion of the knowledge which would 
enable men to proceed intelligently with the presentation 
of motives to right and courageous action, and the blazing 
of a path through the tangled thickets of superstition and 
routine and corruption and every form of tyranny and in- 
justice, out into the open world of truth and freedom. At 
the risk of walking along avenues which will need to be 
retrodden, and saying things which will have to be said 
over again, we must pause here long enough to get a true 
historical setting for our narrative, and a clear under- 
standing of the exact points in dispute and the real causes 
which led up to the fierce conflict between Conformity and 
Dissent and issued in the Pilgrims in America. 



The Reformation in England, it needs to be kept in mind, 
was of a double nature. It was a reUgious reformation, 

and it was a pohtical reformation. The move- 
Nature of ment to improve the condition of things in the 
the Befor- religious world began, as we have seen, with 
mation in Wycliffe, about two centuries before Luther. 
England The movement to sever the government of 

England from the domination of the papal 
power took form and was pushed forward to a victorious 
consummation, under Henry VIII. The measures adopted 
by Henry were followed up and confirmed by Edward VI 
and Queen Elizabeth. 



20 THE PILGRIMS 

It will be recalled that Henry VIII, after his break with 
Pope Clement VII over the question of his divorce from 
Catherine of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn, 
persuaded Parliament to permit him to declare himself the 
head of the national church. Mary, who, on her accession 
to sovereignty^ did her best to undo and reverse what her 
father Henry and her brother Edward had done for the 
advance of Protestantism, secured the repeal of the measure 
her father had induced Parliament to enact. 

Concerning this repeal, however, Hallam, in his " Consti- 
tutional History," significantly remarks : " Her Parliament, 
so obsequious in all matters of rehgion, adhered with a firm 
grasp to the possession of the church lands ; nor could the 
papal supremacy be reestablished until a sanction was 
given to their enjoyment." The pope at Rome might 
have his way once more, if Mary had set her heart on 
restoring to him this privilege, in matters of faith and cere- 
mony ; but lands which had been confiscated from ecclesias- 
tical ownership, and turned over to the possession of the 
EngHsh aristocracy, were quite another matter; and it 
would not do for Parliament to attempt to disturb rights so 
sacred! When was a genuine Britisher, whether under 
one flag or another, ever known willingly to give up a 
square foot of mother earth.'' Besides, these confiscated 
monastery lands comprised not less than one-fifth of the 
whole area of the realm. 

But as parliaments in those days, save in interests which 
touched the pockets of the members, were httle more than 
instruments for registering the sovereign's will, Elizabeth 
easily constrained her lawmakers to reenact the statute of 
Henry. The authority in church matters previously vested 
in the pope was now vested in the queen. The queen was 
head of the church, and her power in all that concerned 
the church was well-nigh limitless. 

As Dr. Bacon has stated in substance, all the great ec- 
clesiastical dignities and thousands of the humbler benefices 
were at the disposal of the government. The people, ex- 
cept in a few anomalous instances, were denied any voice 
in the appointment of their parish ministers. There could 
be no synod or convocation, general or diocesan, with a lay 



THE PILGRIMS 21 

representation, to regulate matters of common interest. 
Convocations, even of the clergy, could assemble only at the 
command of the sovereign. When assembled, these convoca- 
tions could engage in business only under the sovereign's 
particular warrant. 

It will not take long to see that the only advantage the 
church, or rather, to speak more accurately, the Christian 
people of the land, had under the new condition of things 
over the old, was a pope near at hand, and not far away as 
at Rome, and a chance to fight their battles for religious 
freedom and the sacred rights of conscience on their own 
ground and under their own cherished flag. 

II 

The outcome was just what might have been anticipated. 
Here were the conditions of inevitable discontent and vigor- 
ous protest. Discontent arose and protests 
Discontent were uttered. With self-respect enough and 
and vitality enough in the church to hold it to- 

conflict gether, and keep it in any sort of mood for 

bearing witness to the faith and pushing any 
kind of religious activity, there would be sure to be some 
voices to ciy out against the woful lack of spirituality, and 
the perversion of religious belief and the whole machinery 
of a great religious organization to the ends of secular 
ambition. 

In this instance the voices were clear and loud. It was 
not enough that the visible head of the church should be 
changed, and that men should look, not to the Roman 
pontiff, but to the head of the nation at Westminster, for 
direction in things spiritual, but they wanted the old leaven 
of Romish corruption, down to the last particle of it, 
purged out, and every trace of superstition and idolatry 
forever removed. 

The Act of Uniformity which was passed soon after 
Elizabeth ascended the throne, and which estabhshed the 
Book of Common Prayer as the only form for the worship 
of God by a religious assembly, and made it an offense 
severely punishable for a minister to deviate from the 



22 THE PILGRIMS 

rubrics, gave fresh and alarming occasion for protest, and 
furnished a battle-cry to all adherents of Puritanism, and 
did much to cement them into unity. When the time had 
come in the estimation of the politic queen for the rigid 
enforcement of the Act of Uniformity, there was a spirit of 
resistance abroad which was just as determined that the act 
should not be enforced. 

The Act of Uniformity was accompanied and supple- 
mented by an Act of Supremacy. Under this law the Ec- 
clesiastical Establishment of England was finally separated 
from the See of Rome, and the queen was empowered to 
set up a court, which came in time to be known as the 
" High Commission for Causes Ecclesiastical." It differed 
little from other inquisitions save that it was English and 
not Spanish, and was conducted, not by Catholics, but by 
Protestants. 

This " High Commission " had power to make inquiries 
respecting heretical opinions, seditions, books, contempts, 
conspiracies, false rumors or talks. It might punish per- 
sons for absenting themselves from church. It could take 
away their livings from ministers who held doctrines con- 
trary to the Thirty-Nine Articles. It could put suspected 
persons under oath and examine them. Often these exami- 
nations were conducted by a series of questions so shrewdly 
designed to trap their prey that Lord Burleigh, who, 
though prime minister of England, was not in sympathy 
with Whitgift, the primate and the chief agent in enforcing 
this statute of persecution, thought the proceeding left the 
inquisitors of Philip II and the whole line of popes from 
Paul IV to Clement VIII quite behind in cunning and 
malignity. 

Bancroft in his splendid chapter on " The Pilgrims," 
speaking of what was taking place at this time under the 
jurisdiction of this commission, says: " Subscriptions were 
now required to points which before had been eluded; the 
kingdom rung with the complaints for deprivations ; the 
most learned and diligent of the ministry were driven from 
their places; and those who were introduced to read the 
hturgy were so ignorant that few of them could preach. 
Did men listen to their deprived pastors in the recesses 



THE PILGRIMS 23 

of forests, the offense, if discovered, was visited with fines 
and imprisonments. ... In vain did the sufferers murmur ; 
in vain did Parliament disapprove. . . . The archbishop 
would have deemed forbearance a weakness ; and the queen 
was ready to interpret any freedom in rehgion as a treas- 
onable denial of her supremacy." 

The simple fact is that this law of Supremacy, as inter- 
preted and enforced by the High Commission, was a horri- 
ble despotism, and meant that no Nonconformist could 
have shelter for his nonconformity under the Enghsh 
Constitution. 



Ill 

The surprising as well as painful thing in all this is that 
it occurred in the reign of Elizabeth. Elizabeth was a 
Protestant — or at least she was popularly 
Elizabeth's supposed to be. In the tremendous contest then 
anomalous waging in Europe all her larger interests were 
attitude qj^ ^]^^ gj(]g Q,f Protestantism. We are not as- 

tonished at anything Henry did after he had 
fairly begun his strange career. Mary was likewise self- 
consistent, and her actions were in Mne with what might 
have been anticipated. But Elizabeth's conduct grieves 
and shocks us. It was inhuman and it was incongruous. 
The more we dwell on the record the more it excites our 
amazement. For though a capricious piece of womanhood, 
and even at this late day not easily to be classified, Eliza- 
beth was a great and distinguished queen. It is impossible 
to recur to the period of English history of which she was 
the brilliant center without experiencing a glow of enthu- 
siasm which sets all the pulses to beating more quickly and 
causes the whole soul to swell with a pardonable pride. 

It was the age of Shakespeare, Spenser, Bacon, Sidney, 
and Raleigh. Who can foresee a day so bright that some 
of these names will not shine like stars of the first magnitude 
in the firmament of English literature? It was the era of 
Hawkins and Drake. Nelson, Farragut, Dewey, and Togo 
have since plowed the seas with their mighty battle-ships, 
and smitten enemies with the fierceness of irresistible toma- 



24 THE PILGRIMS 

does, and won victories whose fame will make their names 
immortal; but what victories will ever be so resplendent 
that men will forget the glory of Cadiz in 1587, or the 
dauntless courage with which the Invincible Armada was 
met, and by the signal aid of God's providence, overthrown 
and destroyed in 1588? 

One must go back to the age of Pericles in Athens, when 
every branch of industry was carried to perfection, and 
commerce was flourishing, and elegance and magnificence 
alike iparked the life of the people, and the Parthenon was 
rising in its beauty, and Phidias and Socrates and Sopho- 
cles were dominating thought ; or to the later age of Au- 
gustus in Rome, when Virgil and Horace were lighting up 
the world of letters with their genius and cultivation, and 
skilled architects were transforming a city of brick into a 
city of marble, and the marvelous prosperity and order 
of a mild tyranny were reconciling the influential classes 
to the loss of liberty, to find anjrthing like a parallel to the 
illustrious age of Elizabeth. Rather, perhaps, one must 
move forward to the remarkable period of Victoria, with 
the swift ships and cunning looms, the forges, the electrical 
discoveries and apphances, and the Gladstones, Tennysons, 
Darwins, Livingstones, and Florence Nightingales which 
characterized and adorned the period, to find a suitable 
resemblance to the splendor of the Elizabethan era. It 
was a creative stage in the development of national thought 
and life. It was a time when the minds of the people were 
aflame with intense heats, and all hearts were big with 
resolution, and a new spirit was taking possession of the 
English world. 

Nevertheless, through one of those perplexing inconsist- 
encies of which, unfortunately, history reveals too many, 
it was under the rule of Elizabeth, the Protestant queen — 
and in the midst of mental activity so intense and excep- 
tional in fruitfulness that the story of it loses none of its 
attractiveness by the passing of time, and when the nation 
was making for itself a record of imperishable renown — 
that the prisons of London were crowded with Protestant 
believers, and the public executioners were busy with rope 
and torch hurrying into eternity the souls of men who were 



THE PILGRIMS 25 

cultivated, brave, true, and loyal, and whose only offense 
was their earnest faith in Christ and their desire to wor- 
ship Grod in the simplest and most direct way. When these 
transactions were taking place the heroic vice-admiral of 
England was humiliating Catholic pretensions and defeat- 
ing Cathohc schemes by winning his signal triumphs over 
the Spanish fleet. Over in the Netherlands, in a conflict 
which had all the nations of Europe for interested onlookers, 
with Philip II and the Duke of Alva on one side, and 
on the other the ever-famous Prince of Orange, Philip 
Sidney, whom the queen graciously called " the jewel of her 
dominions," was sacrificing his precious life in protest 
against Romish aggressions and in vindication of the rights 
of conscience. But while Drake was overcoming the forces 
of Catholic Spain, and Sidney was dying for the Protestant 
faith for which it was fondly supposed Elizabeth and her 
English people had come to stand, contemptible spies and 
ecclesiastical courts not less contemptible, and jailers and 
hangmen were doing all in their power to prevent men 
and women from coming to Christ in the spirit and after the 
method mapped out in the New Testament, and worshiping 
God and meeting the grave responsibilities of discipleship 
in a way to harmonize with the whisperings of the still, 
small voice in the soul. 

For no other crime than this John Copping and Elias 
Thacker were confined in prison for seven years, and then 
executed in the quiet old town of Bury St. Edmunds. For 
no other crime than this Barrowe and Greenwood and Penry 
were put to death in London. 

There were others, not publicly executed, who were just 
as truly martyrs to the faith. They were the men and 
women who were dragged from their humble homes, and 
shut up in " damp, vermin-haunted and fever-smitten dun- 
geons," and compelled to remain there till their lives were 
slowly worn out. Dr. Dexter gives a list of twenty-five — 
twenty men and five women — who in this way paid the pen- 
alty of their convictions. What stones of crudest wrong 
the stones of old Tyburn and Newgate could tell had they 
tongues ! 

The conflict was kept up through the entire reign of 



26 THE PILGRIMS 

Elizabeth, only to be continued with the same desperate 
determination by both sides on the accession of James I to 
power. The authorities were bound there should be no 
Separatist assemblies for worship and the study of the 
Scriptures and mutual edification, and the Separatists, 
fully assured of God's approval, were bound there should be 
such assembhes. 

IV 

How account for this strange attitude of the queen? 
The explanation furnished by Arber in his " Story of the 
Pilgrim Fathers " is the only adequate one. 
Explana- Backed by Froude, who in this instance seems 
tion of ify )3e right, he declares that Elizabeth had 

queen's nothing of the Puritan in her. She was a 

strange nationalist. Quoting Froude he says : " ' In 

conduct jjgj. birth, she was the symbol of the revolt 

from Papacy. She could not reconcile herself 
with Rome without condemning the marriage from which 
she sprung; but her interest in Protestantism was limited 
to political independence. . . . She would permit no au- 
thority in England which did not center in herself. The 
Church should be a department of the state, organized by 
parHament, and ruled by the national tribunals. . . . 
There should be no conventicles and no chapels to be the 
nurseries of sedition.' " 

Other considerations brought forward by Arber are illu- 
minating and furnish clues to the mystery of the queen's 
conduct. 

To begin with, three- fourths of her subjects were Roman 
Catholics. Out of the almost five millions of people who 
made up the population of her realm, less than a million and 
a quarter had broken with the church of which the pope 
at Rome was the acknowledged head and exponent. This 
was enough to put any Protestant ruler, though thor- 
oughly sincere and earnest, at a serious disadvantage. A 
ruler so wary, and in many respects so unscrupulous, as 
this most brilliant of all the sovereigns who have occupied 
the British throne from Alfred to Edward VII, would find 



THE PILGRIMS 27 

in this unequal division of her people on the lines of faith 
abundant occasion for political trimming, and for much 
that was more heinous than mere adroitness. 

In addition to this, Elizabeth had living illustration close 
at hand of what must have seemed to her the fatal conse- 
quences of allowing religion to become the basis of internal 
dissensions in her kingdom. 

In France, the Huguenots, instead of being suppressed 
at the outset and rendered harmless by annihilation, were 
permitted to grow into a pohtical power as well as a theo- 
logical and church party, and thus to threaten the stability 
of the government and the harmony of the state. This 
unwise toleration, as she no doubt thought it, had fostered 
sectarian antagonisms and civil feuds, had drenched the 
land in blood, had arrested industry and checked the flow of 
prosperity and the accumulation of wealth, and in every 
way had detracted from the happiness and welfare of the 
people and the dignity and power of the throne. In her 
dominions, if she could help it, there was to be no repetition 
of this French folly. Wheels within wheels were no part of 
her idea of government. 

The Netherlands presented the same warning spectacle. 
Under one flag there were two hostile camps. It was Prot- 
estant against Catholic and Catholic against Protestant. 
Not only was the power of the nation weakened, but the 
unity of the nation as well ; and every great national inter- 
est was put in jeopardy by these rehgious factions. 

England must be kept clear of the peril of a divided 
church. She was the head of the church, and her headship 
must be recognized, and there must be no departure from 
uniformity in the pubhc worship of God. 

Over and above all else — the most weighty reason, in all 
likelihood, for the course she pursued — is the fact that 
Elizabeth was constrained by circumstances to have Spain 
evermore in her mind. At no time could she forget that the 
little " Sea-Girt Isle," over whose destinies she presided, had 
a tremendous rival and an enemy of well-nigh irresisti- 
ble force right at her doors. At no time could she forget 
that this enemy, many-eyed and hundred-handed, was 
watching every movement England made, and stood ready 



28 THE PILGRIMS 

at the first opportune moment to batter down her walls 
and overrun her territory and despoil her wealth and 
glory. The ambition of Spain was boundless. It was the 
desire of her kings to become sole masters of the Western 
world. Only England and the Netherlands could thwart 
this scheme of wide and irresponsible sovereignty and 
prevent one of the worst calamities which could have be- 
fallen modem civilization and the progress of the race. 
Whatever she did or left undone, Elizabeth felt that she 
must throw herself with all her skill and resources across 
the path of these aggressive Spanish monarchs. She must 
outwit them in their cunning wiles and outfight them in 
any battles they might see fit to wage. How successful 
she was all the world knows, and will keep in memory to the 
end of time. 

These facts explain — in some measure they palliate — 
the cruel deeds done by the queen in her dealing with Dis- 
senters. They serve to mitigate the severity of our condem- 
nation. Her procedure was not wise. Injustice is never 
wise. There were other ways besides torturing and hanging 
Protestant sub j ects by which she could have held the nation 
loyal to her authority. The policy she pursued meant 
sooner or later an Oliver Cromwell and a Charles without a 
head. After all, Elizabeth, like the Pilgrims and the Puri- 
tans, is to be judged by the standards of her own age, and 
not by those of our age, and by the conditions under which 
she reigned. 



But persecution could not arrest the conclusions of rea- 
son, or stifle the convictions of conscience. Men who think 

for themselves will by and by act for them- 
How injus- selves. Over against this background of big- 
tice and otry and oppression and hate, and all that the 

oppression Henrys and Marys and Elizabeths and Jameses 
helped could do to stay the march of events and keep 

the moral sense in subordination to arbitrary 
power, we have the magnificent story of Separatism. Under 
this severe discipline of fire and blood heroic souls emerged, 



THE PILGRIMS 29 

and feeble and harassed groups of disciples grew into 
strong bodies of Independents with force enough in them 
to make their influence for learning and righteousness, both 
in home and foreign lands, a distinguishable and potent 
factor in the best civilization of this modem era. The Pil- 
grim was the joint product of the cruel injustice and the 
high aspirations of his time. Faith in God and a well- 
developed and vigorous moral sense on the one side, and an 
over liberal supply of persecution by Tudors and Stuarts 
on the other, called forth the Pilgrim and made him the 
superb type of man he came to be. He is one of the best 
of the many examples in history of 

' ' The mystic harmony of right and wrong. 
Both working out His wisdom and om- good." 

In church and state alike there was call for him, and bad 
men turned in and helped produce him. Counted insignifi- 
cant by many, disdained and despised by those high in 
authority, he was yet the hinge on which mighty events were 
to turn. Society had reached a point in its progress where 
his services were to have a unique and enduring value ; and 
tyrants became his unwitting instructors, that he might 
the better learn how to build institutions which should be 
to the everlasting glory of God and the permanent welfare 
of humanity. 



Ill 

THE PIONEERS OF THE PILGREVIS 



Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. — The Book of Acts. 

There may have been others, but looking back through the dim mists of 
time, the earUest pioneers of independent thought we come upon on English 
soil are thirty weavers in the diocese of Worcester, who were summoned 
before the council of Oxford as far back as a. d. 1165. — John Bbown. 

Those who gave earUest notice, as the lark 

Springs fronj the ground the morn to gratulate; 

Who rather rose the day to antedate. 

By striking out a soUtary spark. 

When all the world with midnight gloom was dark. 

William Wordsworth. 

It was the glory of the Separatists that they had a vision of another 
state of things, and struck out a new path, pronounced of course by all the 
lovers of the old, to be revolutionary and dangerous. Dangerous it was not, 
except in the sense in which liberty of every kind has its perils, but revolution- 
ary it undoubtedly was. The Separatists broke loose by one strong effort 
of faith from all the restraints of antiquity and tradition. They were as 
revolutionary as the men who framed the Constitution of the United States. 
Where would the world be if it had not had from time to time men who have 
dared to work out revolutions? — J. Guinness Rogers. 

Not for their hearts and homes alone. 
But for the world their work was done; 

On all the winds their thought has flown 
Through all the circuits of the sun. 

John G. Whittieb. 

Come out, then, from the old thoughts and old ways. 
Before you harden to a crystal cold. 
Which the new life can shatter, but not mould ; 

Freedom for you still waits, still, looking backward, stays, 

But widens still the irretrievable space. 

James Russell Lowell. 



Ill 

THE PIONEERS OF THE PH^GRIMS 

IN coasting along the shores of the section of history now 
engaging our attention three prominent headlands 
appear in three men who had marked share in quicken- 
ing Puritan conceptions and aspirations, and in fixing the 
grounds on which the great and inevitable struggle for 
further reformation in rehgion should be fought out. These 
three outstanding men also illustrate the courage and cost 
required to carry the conflict through to a successful issue. 
Or, to change the figure to one more common to our thought, 
it may be said that this movement, which was first Puritan 
and later Pilgrim, had three distinct and distinguished 
pioneers. 



Of these three the leading name is John Hooper. By 
some of our writers Hooper is considered to have been the 
first Puritan. Whether he was or not is im- 
Hooper and material. The things he stood for, and for 
his martyr- which he died, make him a conspicuous figure 
dom in the momentous controversy for the emanci- 

pation of religion from superstition and selfish- 
ness, and impart to his services a peculiar value. Whatever 
place is assigned to him in the glorious succession of open- 
visioned men and martyrs to the truth he will hardly be too 
much honored. 

Hooper was born in Somersetshire about 1495. It was 
a stirring time in which to begin Hfe. Columbus had made 
the discovery of America only three years before. Henry 
VIII was his senior by barely four years. Martin Luther, 
across in Germany, was a lad of fourteen. Leo X, down 

3 



34 THE PILGRIMS 

in Italy, though already a cardinal, was a youth of little 
more than twenty. Resolute spirits these, and the sure 
prophecies of no little excitement and overturning in the 
near future. The air, both in England and on the conti- 
nent, was charged with electricity. It would not be long 
before lightnings would flash along the sky and the earth 
shake with the rumble of approaching thunder. 

Hooper studied at Oxford ; but he was forced to escape 
to foreign lands on account of his sympathies with new 
ideas and movements. The battle had begun. The clatter 
of onset near at hand and the dull roar of the distant can- 
nonade were reaching his ear. To him, however, these 
ominous reverberations were not so much the sound of war 
as the rustling of the wings of the angels who were herald- 
ing a fresh dawn to the world. Hence he could not 
withhold expressions of approval and demonstrations of 
gladness. Such expressions and demonstrations were in- 
tolerable to the reigning powers. His safety lay in flight. 
In the expectation that with the passing of Henry there 
would be an end of persecution, he returned to England. 
In 1550, under Edward VI, he was made bishop of Glouces- 
ter. Subsequently he was appointed bishop of Worcester 
as well. Five years later, in the crusade of murder for 
opinion's sake, set on foot by Mary Tudor, he was 
burned at the stake. Thus he was gathered into what we 
now know as the glorious fellowship of Rogers, Taylor, 
and Ferrar, of Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer, and made 
one of the cherished immortals of history. 

Hooper was not a Separatist. In the times of storm and 
stress which had come upon the people of God, he en- 
couraged the nourishing of spiritual life in the hearts of 
believers by what we should call prayer and conference 
meetings, though these had to be held in secret; but he 
never advised action which looked toward a sharp and final 
breaking away from the church in which he and others of 
like mind had their membership. But he was positive and 
firm in his Puritanism, as is made evident by the surrender 
of his life in devotion to Puritan principles. It was only a 
matter of vestments at which he hesitated ; but these vest- 
ments in what they represented, like the flag of a country. 



THE PILGRIMS 35 

involved the whole question in controversy. In the protest 
he uttered, and finally sealed with his blood, he showed clearly 
that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities had forced an 
" irrepressible conflict " upon the people, and that there 
was no alternative but to fight it out to the bitter end. His 
death interpreted the situation, and from the moment of 
his death good and brave men knew there must be no 
flinching. 

II 

Thomas Cartwright is the second of the three men who 
were turning-points in the mighty struggle. He was forty 

years younger than Hooper, but he was old 
Cartwright enough when Hooper ascended through flame 
and his jj^^q glory to have caught the full significance 

services of his death, and to have felt the thrill of it in 

every pulse of his being. 
Cartwright was born at a place not definitely located in 
Hertfordshire in 1535. He was evidently a boy of unusual 
promise, and at an early age began his studies at Cam- 
bridge; but his life was launched on a tempestuous sea, 
and from the beginning to the end of his voyaging he was 
the victim of the wild tossings to which the changing winds 
and cross-currents of his times would inevitably expose him. 
A bright scholar, a popular professor, a vigorous thinker, 
a skilful debater, and an influential leader, he was never 
safe in his place, nor long at ease. He was now here and 
now there ; at one and another stage of his career in high 
favor at the university of his choice and love, at subse- 
quent or intervening stages a refugee on the continent, 
or sheltered from the assaults of his enemies under the wing 
of eminent officials, but always in the thick of the fight. 
Had he been a man of small mind, or of conservative tem- 
perament, or of cool, calculating disposition, he might have 
got on, as multitudes of others did, and been counted re- 
markably successful and happy. But this was not his type. 
He had a large brain. He was progressive in his instincts 
and aspirations. While positive in his opinions, and intent 
on having iiis own way for the reason that having thought 



36 THE PILGRIMS 

things through, as he supposed, his own way very naturally 
seemed to him to be the best way, he was yet capable of 
disinterested action. If he failed to maintain this charac- 
ter to the end, it is to be remembered that, hke the rest of 
us, he was human. 

Cartwright's merit i^ that in a few clear and simple words 
he laid down the platform on which the reforming party 
stood. He brought things to a point and enabled all men 
to see what was the real and vital question at issue. He did 
for both sides in the controversy what Abraham Lincoln 
did for the country at large when he declared that the 
nation could not exist half slave and half free. He ex- 
posed the quivering nerve of the situation, and showed 
exactly along what lines the contest must be waged. He 
took the struggle out of the air and gave it definite out- 
lining and location. Dr. Dexter says : " To Thomas Cart- 
wright must clearly be assigned the chiefest place in 
bringing Puritanism in England to the dignity of a devel- 
oped system." Another author in speaking of him writes : 
" Although wanting in the judgment and self-command 
essential to the leader of opinion and of party, he gave 
system and method to the Puritanism of his day and must 
be regarded as its most influential teacher during his 
lifetime." 

What was the platform announced by Cartwright? In 
substance it was that the churches have rights in the matter 
of self-regulation and in the choice of ministers which no 
outside authority may override; and that ministers prop- 
erly chosen and set apart to their work are to be teachers 
and helpers and not lords over God's heritage. He wanted 
to reduce ecclesiastical affairs to the simplicity of the early 
days of the church, and to abolish archbishops and arch- 
deacons with all that their names implied. His ideas of 
church government were those which he had been taught 
at Geneva, and which prevailed in Holland and Scotland. 

Hooper, as we have seen, did not get over from Puritan- 
ism into Separatism, though he gave his life in testimony 
of his appreciation of a pure church. So Cartwright halted 
this side of Independency. He recognized the rights of 
the people, but he was not prepared to entrust to local 



THE PILGRIMS 37 

churches the entire management of their own affairs. The 
autonomy of individual churches was something from which 
he shrank. He was unable to break with the illusion that 
there must be some sort of vital and organic relationship 
between the church and the nation. He would have kept 
the church a national institution and under some measure 
of civil authority, but he would have Presbyterianized it. 
As has been well said: " His ideal in relation to church dis- 
cipline and organization was essentially Presbyterian ; and 
this in direct conjunction with the civil power. That he 
would have been willing to recognize any other form of 
church government as lawful, or even entitled to toleration, 
we find no evidence." 

Be it so, he is not the first reformer, nor the last, who 
builded better than he knew. If he advocated a system of 
government for the churches which many of his original 
followers could not accept, he yet lifted up a banner which 
all eyes could see, and inscribed upon it a motto which all 
intelligent people could read and understand. He made 
the point of contention so plain and at the same time so 
imperative that from the hour of his correspondence with 
Whitgift men knew precisely where they were and what was 
the end in view. If his followers outran their leader, it was 
still their leader who gave them inspiration and direction, 
and indicated their true goal. If he was disposed to wait 
for reform until it should come through the intervention of 
government rather than through individual initiative and 
the formation of independent bodies of behevers, it is not 
to be forgotten that in a memorable and masterly fashion 
he gave intellectual alignment to the forces which were 
to fight and win the coming battle. When Puritans were 
asked to state the grounds of their contention, and what 
would satisfy them, they had only to point to the platform 
laid down for them by the Lady Margaret Professor of 
Divinity in the University of Cambridge. For this invalu- 
able service Thomas Cartwright is fairly entitled to the 
everlasting gratitude of all free churches throughout the 
world. 



38 THE PILGRIMS 



III 

The third name In our list is Robert Browne. He was a 
native of Tolethorp, Rutlandshire, and the time of his birth 

is given as near 1550. He was of good stock. 
Robert Facts gathered by Dr. Dexter show that for 

Browne many generations back his ancestors were men 

his merit of wealth and standing. His grandfather, 
and his Francis Browne, " received, by special charter 

tarnished from Henry VIII, the somewhat extraordinary 
fame distinction of being allowed to remain covered 

in presence of the King, and of all lords spir- 
itual and temporal in the realm." His mother, Dorothy 
Boteler, was of gentle blood. His brother Phihp " was 
surveyor of Queen Elizabeth's manors in Lincolnshire." 
Lord Burleigh, who befriended him so effectively in his 
hour of sore straits, was his kinsman. Like Cartwright, 
he was a youth of excellent parts, and there was every 
reason to expect that, coming to maturity, he would be a 
man of power and influence. At the age of twenty, if in- 
ferences and conjectures are correct, he entered Cambridge, 
and in all probability he was a regular graduate from 
Corpus Christi College. 

In due time he became a minister ; but with the attempt 
to induct him into his office and keep him within proper 
conservative bounds the trouble began. With an eye to see 
clearly and a mind naturally vigorous and trained to ac- 
curate thinking, fully alive to the errors and corruption 
everywhere in evidence, resolute, impulsive, he had the 
courage of his convictions. Such men are very sure to 
be heard from when there are burning questions to be settled 
and grievous wrongs to be righted. The agitators and 
reformers, especially Cartwright, had not been without a 
large measure of success in their work at the university, 
and when Browne appeared upon the scene Cambridge was 
a hotbed of progressive ideas. There was enough con- 
servatism to create friction ; but things evil, though en- 
trenched in tradition and law alike, were fiercely challenged. 
Browne spoke out, and neither harsh dealings nor kindly 



THE PILGRIMS 39 

treatment, neither the threats of those whose positions he 
assailed nor the entreaties of his friends, could silence him. 
Reform was a fire in his bones, and he had to be true to the 
duty he felt. 

But the story of BroAvne is a mixed and sad one. There 
are few Congregationahsts who do not wish it other than 
it is. 

For our present purposes, however, it is unnecessary to 
give anything more than a brief outline of his strange and 
pathetic record. As we have seen, he was a student at 
Cambridge for several years subsequent to 1570. Having 
left college, he was a teacher for three years in Southwark, 
a district of London. After this, for a short and indefinite 
period, he was a dweller once more under the roof of his 
father's home. A little later he was back again at the 
university for the further prosecution of his studies in 
theology. For about six months, following this second 
return to Cambridge, he was a vigorous, laborious, and 
popular preacher in one of the Cambridge pulpits. 

Some time in 1580, or when he was thirty years of age 
and in the prime of his early manhood, he went to Norwich. 
A report had reached his ear that in this old Roman town 
there was a group of people who were intent on improve- 
ment in existing religious conditions, and he wanted to 
see them, compare notes with them, and make observation 
of their manner of life. Being on the ground, and accredit- 
ing himself to them by his abihty and determination, he 
became the accepted leader of these people. He organized 
them into a church on the simple Congregational basis. 
He labored at Bury St. Edmunds also, and possibly at other 
places in the region. 

A year or so afterward he led this Norwich flock over the 
sea to Middleberg in Zealand. There he spent his time in 
ministering to them and in writing on matters of vital con- 
cern. At the end of a couple of years devoted to this kind 
of effort, and when the elements of the little church were 
found to be incongruous, and irreconcilable differences of 
a serious sort had made their appearance, he left Zealand 
for Scotland. In this wide parish to which John Knox had 
ministered so long and so effectually, and from which he 



40 THE PILGRIMS 

had but recently ascended into the open presence of his 
Lord, he became a restless declaimer of disturbing opinions 
and a thorn in the side of Presbyterianism. Not far from 
1586, he made his way to England again, and having 
passed through various experiences at the hands of both 
friends and foes, he turned his back on himself and his fol- 
lowers, recanted and disowned his brave opinions, and, 
humihated and trembling under the excommunication of 
the bishop of Peterborough, returned in an almost abject 
submissiveness to the fold of the church in which he had 
found so much error and corruption, and which he had 
denounced so unsparingly. 

After this most surprising change of attitude, he lived 
on, a teacher for a brief season, and then an inconspicuous 
rector of an insignificant parish, but an agitator effectually 
silenced, for forty weary years. The end came at North- 
ampton, about ten years after the Pilgrims had landed at 
Plymouth Rock. His grave no man knoweth unto this 
day. 

These are the characters in which he figured ; these are 
the stages in the course which he ran ; these are the outlines 
of his life, from the hour when he emerged to pubUc view 
and took up what he conceived to be his work in the world 
till death came to his release and the relief of those to whom 
he had long been a humihating and anxious burden. 

It was a well-nigh incredible life for any man to have 
lived. It opened with splendid displays of clear seeing and 
courage. It was marked by eminent service to the cause 
of pure and undefiled religion. It bid fair at one time to 
be a life which, for its earnestness, its consistency, its superb 
heroism and high devotion, would win and hold the admira- 
tion of the centuries. Its ending was weak and pitiable. 

It is not uncommon for a radical in the course of events 
to become a conservative. Experience in trying to bring 
about reforms in church and state not unfrequently tones 
down, if it does not wholly destroy, enthusiasm for reform. 
It takes a man of indomitable pluck and entire consecration 
to stand up and go straight on in face of the discourage- 
ments sure to be encountered in efforts to advance society. 

But here was a reversal of view and aim so end for end 



THE PILGRIMS 41 

and a collapse so utter that it seems not only mysterious 
but ignominious. Like old Gonzalo's commonwealth in 
Shakespeare's " Tempest," the latter end of his life alto- 
gether forgot the beginning. Browne was a radical of the 
most radical type, but his final surrender to the very 
authorities he had repudiated and denounced was so sur- 
prising that it suggests a cowed braggart or an athlete 
out of whom all spirit has been taken. 

It is no wonder that a personality like this has been 
found perplexing to students of history. The case presents 
a nut for the psychologists to crack, or rather, it may be, for 
the alienists. It is no wonder that self-respecting believers 
used to be a bit chagrined when called by his name, and 
vigorously insisted on some less compromising designation. 
It is no wonder that members of the Congregational fellow- 
ship, even in our day, find it hard to conquer their preju- 
dices and entertain anything like reasonable respect for a 
leader who brought his career to a close with such an ignoble 
anticlimax. 

Dr. Mackennal, in a paragraph in which he deals with 
him, breaks out somewhat impatiently and says : " Let me 
frankly confess — I do not like Robert Browne ; I have not 
the confidence in him expressed by Dr. Dexter and Dr. Dale. 
He was a man offensive to his opponents and objectionable 
to his friends ; he betrayed the cause to which he attached 
himself; and I do not wonder at the heat with which 
English dissenters have always repudiated the nickname 
' Brownist.' " 

Dr. Brown of Bedford, in " The Pilgrim Fathers of New 
England," though not disposed to admit all the claims which 
have been advanced in his behalf, has this to say of him: 
" The leader of the Congregationahsts in East Anglia was 
Robert Browne, a man of ability and force of character, 
and, so far as social position was concerned, of aristocratic 
connections. By a strange irony of fate he is by one side 
persistently described as the founder of Congregationalism, 
and as persistently repudiated by the other. From having 
advocated Congregational principles at one part of his 
career, and withdrawn from them at another, he has re- 
ceived scant justice from both sides. Ardent and impulsive, 



42 THE PILGRIMS 

but too unstable to stand the stress of the storm which gath- 
ered about him year after year — he was, he says, in the 
course of his hfe in no fewer than thirty prisons, in some 
of which he could not see his hand at midday — he scarcely 
seems to have deserved all the hard things that have been 
said of him. No doubt he had more capacity for expound- 
ing the principles of CongregationaHsm than for working 
them out in his actual Hfe ; but no one can dispassionately 
read the five books he published between 1582 and 1584! 
without feeling that at that time at least he was an earnest- 
minded man, of strong and clear convictions in favor of 
popular government in the Church." 

Dr. Bacon is perhaps the least sparing of all in his 
criticism of Browne. He says that, though he " was re- 
stored to good standing, not only in the church, but in the 
priesthood," and " in a short time after his submission 
received a benefice," " this does not imply that he recanted 
his opinions, or made any profession of repentance for 
what he had done — it was enough that he submitted. He 
had not even the desperate self-respect which prompted 
Judas to hang himself; but, Uke Benedict Arnold, he took 
care not to lose the poor reward of his baseness. He was 
the rector of a parish, and received his tithes, but never 
preached. By his idle and dissolute hfe he disgraced his 
ministry ; but, inasmuch as he could not be charged with 
non-conformity, he retained his living. The quarrelsome 
temper which had broken up his little church at Middleberg 
vented itself upon his wife in acts of cruelty, and they could 
not live together. In a quarrel with the constable of the 
parish, he took the responsibility of beating that officer. 
Arraigned before a justice for the unclerical offense, he 
used such violence of speech that he was sent to prison for 
contempt, and there he died, at the age of eighty, a mis- 
erable and despised old man, but a beneficed minister of the 
Church of England, and in regular standing." 

After all, it seems to me that Dr. Dexter has given us 
much the best explanation of Browne's eccentricities. Dr. 
Bacon, in the estimate which he made of Browne in the 
latter part of his life, followed Fuller. Dr. Dexter took 
pains to sift the statements of Fuller, and see what grounds 



THE PILGRIMS 43 

he had for his opinion. Trying his assertions by the test 
of a careful examination into the facts on which they were 
based, he found him not invariably trustworthy. Very 
properly, therefore, he refused to follow Fuller in his judg- 
ment of Browne unless he found something beside Fuller's 
mere assertion to justify the judgment. According to his 
summing up of the case Browne was not an " ambitious 
bigot ; " he was not a " contemptible sneak ; " he was not 
" dishonest " and corrupt ; he was not " a renegade and a 
reprobate ; " but " he was an honest man, whose sensitive 
mind, under great stress of trial, made shipwreck on his 
return to his native country ; who never became really him- 
self again ; and who, for the longer portion of the last five 
and forty years of his hfe, was in a shattered mental con- 
dition, which in our time would be thought better placed 
in a lunatic hospital than in the rectory even of an Estab- 
lished Church of eighteen families." The facts brought 
forward would appear to make this clear to any unpreju- 
diced student. Weak in body, intense of brain, and of a 
high-strung nervous organization, the man was overworked 
and overworried into a species of insanity from which he 
never recovered. 

What, now, did Robert Browne do to entitle him to the 
unique place which he holds in the history and development 
of Congregationahsm.'' He did three things: 

(a) He stated the principles which underlie Congrega- 
tionalism with a clearness and force which at once invested 
them with a large measure of the authority of demonstrated 
truths. Dr. Mackennal, in spite of his dislike of the man, 
freely concedes to him this merit : " He was a clear and 
resolute thinker; he gave himself to study the problems of 
his time in the simple light of the New Testament, and he 
produced an admirable and complete doctrine of the Church, 
which at once determined the whole future of Congrega- 
tionalism." Dr. Dexter makes the statement : " It is 
very clear that Browne . . . following the track of 
thought which he had long been elaborating . . . thor- 
oughly discovered and restated the original Congrega- 
tional way in all its simplicity and symmetry." 

( b) He put his theory in practise by organizing a church 



44 THE PILGRIMS 

on the basis of Congregationalism. This he did at Nor- 
wich. It is a question in debate whether this church at 
Norwich was really the first Congregational church set 
up in England. Dr. Dexter, in a sentence immediately 
following the statement just quoted from him, goes on to 
say : " And here ... by his promptings and under his 
guidance, was formed the first church in modem days of 
which I have any knowledge, which was intelligently, and 
as one might say philosophically, Congregational in its 
platform and processes." 

In a certain technical sense this may be true, — it no 
doubt is true; but all the later writers, such as Griffis, 
Brown, and Mackennal, are a unit in the claim that there 
were churches in England which were to all intents and 
purposes Congregational years before Browne began his 
career. The members of them were Protestants. They 
were dissenters. They were affiliated in worship. Like the 
smitten people of God in the olden times, they came together 
in dens and caves ; or, hke the disciples before the day of 
Pentecost, they met for prayer and praise in upper cham- 
bers ; and while not Congregational in all that the term 
has come to mean in the United States, they were yet in- 
dependents, and were bound together in those bonds of 
liberty and fellowship which are essential elements of 
Congregationalism. 

One of these early congregations, numbering not less 
than two hundred, gathered in London, and called " Gos- 
pellers," dates back to 1553. Four years later this hated 
and hunted body of simple behevers in Jesus Christ came 
to grief. Its meeting-place was revealed to the authorities 
by " a false, hypocritical, and dissembling brother," and 
its minister and deacon were burned at the stake. This 
minister was a native of Scotland, named John Rough, who 
had heard of a " holy congregation of God's children " 
somewhere in the great city, and had come to find and join 
them. He succeeded, but in a little more than a month 
after his arrival the assembly was discovered and broken 
up, and he was compelled to suffer the pangs of martyrdom. 

A year before the death of Rough a minister by the name 
of Rose was sent to the Tower. With a few of his fellow 



THE PILGRIMS 45 

believers he was detected at a communion service in a pri- 
vate house in Bow Churchyard, and for this offense was 
thrust into prison. His congregation, however, was but 
a small one, and was gathered, most hkely, somewhat later 
than the one to which Rough belonged. 

Later than these organizations, but more than ten years 
before Browne had formed his church at Norwich, there was 
a very notable congregation of this sort in London. The 
year quite generally assigned to it is 1567. Richard Fitz 
was its minister. This was a church proper, with a pastor 
to lead the flock, and officers to administer its affairs, 
though it had no settled place for holding its meetings. 
On the occasion when the officers of the law broke in upon 
them, and arrested those whom they supposed to be the 
leaders of the body to the number of a dozen or more, these 
people, who had by some process found their way back 
into the simplicity of Christ, were assembled in Plumber's 
Hall. In a paper signed by Fitz, in which what are claimed 
to be the true marks of a church of Christ are set forth, 
these three characteristics and aims are named : " First 
and foremost, the glorious word and Evangel preached, not 
in bondage and subjection, but freely and purely. Sec- 
ondly, to have the Sacraments ministered purely, only and 
altogether according to the institution and good word of 
the Lord Jesus, without any tradition or invention of 
man. And last of all to have not the filthy canon law, 
but discipline only, and altogether agreeable to the same 
heavenly and almighty word of our good Lord, Jesus 
Christ." 

Dr. Mackennal in the little book to which reference has 
already been made, and from which in the main the above 
facts have been gathered, says : " There are certain points 
in which this London community had not attained to the 
complete Congregational system afterward elaborated by 
Browne and Barrowe ; but there is considerable advance be- 
yond the position of the secret assemblies of Mary's time. 
The church is in protest against the incomplete Reforma- 
tion in a professedly Protestant nation ; — but most im- 
portant of all is what is said about discipline. This is 
regarded as the charge of the whole church ; any church 



46 THE PILGRIMS 

where this is so is entitled to be called Congregational." 
The same author affirms that " a church is still in existence 
whose connection with this persecuted company can be 
traced — the church of the Pilgrim Fathers in South- 
wark." He suspects there may be other existing congre- 
gations which had their origin in the same movement. 
Unquestionably there were a good many of these dissenting 
believers abroad. Dr. Brown finds " indisputable evidence " 
that a Congregational church was in existence in London 
as early as 1571. He is inclined to think that this London 
church may have been the school in which Browne learned 
so well his Congregational principles. Be this as it may, 
and be many other things which might be said on this 
matter as they may, Robert Browne, by his presence and 
influence and leadership, did organize this church at Nor- 
wich, and he organized it on the basis of what are distinctly 
Congregational ideas, and he gave it such shaping and in- 
formed it with such a spirit and purpose that it has stood 
out from the day on which it was organized until this pres- 
ent hour as a clearly defined and, so far as its form and 
method of administering its affairs are concerned, typical 
Congregational church. Whoever may have preceded him, 
or wherever he may have got his notion, this man did ac- 
tually set up and minister to a church that was self- 
consciously Congregational. 

(c) He advocated the scheme of Separatism, and pushed 
it to a successful issue. This was his supreme service ; and 
it would have been a supremely excellent service for any- 
body to render. In the perplexity and confusion of the 
situation he saw clearly what ought to be done. When 
others were taking counsel of their fears, and were uncer- 
tain and hesitant, he boldly moved forward and beckoned 
others to follow. The brave note which he sounded back 
from Middleberg, so soon after reaching there with the 
portion of the Norwich flock which had accompanied him to 
the safe shelter of a foreign land, and which became the 
rallying cry and word of command to the more radical of 
the Nonconformists, put a new face on affairs and gave 
him the right of leadership. He took the ground that he 
and those of like precious faith had waited and debated 



THE PILGRIMS 47 

long enough, had resorted to a sufficient number of ex- 
pedients, and that the hour had struck for them to act 
on their own convictions and meet the consequences. He 
flung out the banner: Reformation Without Tarrying 
For Any. Preachers were not to await orders from the 
magistrates before undertaking the business of refonning 
themselves and their charges, but they were to enter on 
their tasks immediately — immediately and vigorously — 
or stand exposed to the accusation of wickedness. The fore- 
most men of the Puritan party were helplessly handicapped 
by their vicious theory of the interdependence of church 
and state. Cartwright, invaluable as his aid to the cause 
had been, sat there enmeshed and helpless in the web of his 
own weaving. With the rashness of a genius for clear 
seeing and bold action, Browne hewed his way straight 
out through all the entanglements in which the theorizers 
found themselves involved and gained solid footing for 
them all. 

To sum it up in few words, it may be said that it was 
given to Browne, as to no other, to set Puritanism forward 
by defining the church in terms so intelligible and simple 
that one saw in his statement a reproduction of the spirit 
and method of primitive Christianity, and by announcing 
the duty of the situation in language so positive and ring- 
ing that out-and-out Separatism was made to seem to many 
minds not only justifiable but imperative. At just the 
moment when Separatism was of all words the word most 
needed, Browne spoke it. He spoke it so clearly and loudly 
that the echo of it has never died out of the world. Had 
the close of his career been a thousandfold more disgrace- 
ful than it was, this would have been a service forever to 
liis credit. He was clear-sighted and brave and true at 
an exigency when these high qualities counted most for 
the cause. He himself could not undo the good he had 
done. 

For circulating books in which these courageous views 
were expressed and advocated some men lost their lives, and 
Browne has been blamed for it. He remained safe, so it has 
been charged, in his secure retreat in a foreign land, and 
permitted others more fearless back in England to make 



48 THE PILGRIMS 

the last great sacrifice in penalty for the distribution of 
his pubhcations and the dissemination of his ideas. 

But if Browne is to be reproached for this, then Martin 
Luther must bear the blame for the blood shed in the 
mighty conflict which resulted from the changes which his 
views set in motion. So, too, the cruel taking off of the 
patriotic yeomen who fell at Lexington and Concord and 
Bunker Hill must be laid as a crime at the doors of Samuel 
Adams and John Hancock. Even though he did not bear 
arms and expose his own breast on the field of battle, who 
fails to applaud Benjamin Frankhn for his stout advocacy 
of the rights of the colonies in their revolt against England.'' 
There would have been no Civil War in this land — at any 
rate no Civil War in just the form in which it broke upon 
the nation — with all its ghastly record of suffering and 
slaughter, had there been no agitation against the economic 
blunder and awful wrong of slavery. Some of these agi- 
tators never shouldered muskets nor faced foes on fields of 
blood ; but will not Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips and 
Henry Ward Beecher and John Greenleaf Whittier be held 
in lasting honor by all true patriots and philanthropists 
for the bold and heroic part they took in exposing the mon- 
strous iniquity of holding men and women in bondage, and 
creating a public opinion which at length would insist on 
striking every shackle from every limb and giving to all 
alike a chance to breathe the air of freedom and to work 
out the destiny of honest and intelligent citizens of the 
Repubhc ? 

Ideas concerning liberty and human rights have always 
been explosive and revolutionary. They have been explos- 
ive and revolutionary because they needed to be; and the 
utterance of them has almost always awakened opposition 
and endangered hfe. If the thinkers had only consented 
to keep still there would have been far less strife in church 
and state, but a vast deal more bondage. Suppose Browne 
had never written any books — or, having written books, 
suppose they had never been taken back into England and 
distributed and read, and gravely pondered by the men into 
whose hands they fell — what then ? Would nobody have 
suffered.'' Would no souls have perished for lack of knowl- 



THE PILGRIMS 49 

edge, and would the Church have been as well off, and the 
world as far along? There is a crime of silence as well as of 
speech. As much harm may come from overprudence 
as from uncalculating courage. Browne was right in what 
he thought and in pubhshing his thoughts ; for thereby 
came appreciable gains to the cause of Christ. 



IV 

THE PILGRIMS AT SCROOBY 



So many therefore of these professors as saw the evil of these things, in 
these parts, and whose hearts the Lord had touched with heavenly zeal for 
His truth, they shook off this yoke of antichristian bondage, and as the Lord's 
free people, joined themselves — by a covenant of the Lord — into a church 
estate, in the fellowship of the gospel, to walk in all His ways, made known, 
or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavors, whatso- 
ever it should cost them. — William Bradford. 

The principle is now almost universally recognized that, for the national 
well-being as well as for religious prosperity, there must be self-regulating 
Christian communities, interpreting for themselves the will of God, existing 
within the state, but not using the civil power. — Alexander Mackennal. 

Back of these beginnings, it is true, we recognize the tremendous forces 
of the Renaissance, of the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries in the West, 
and of the intolerance of the Anglican communion. But, all said and done, 
that a handful of men Uving in a small group of obscure villages in England, 
one of them a postmaster, should have been chiefly responsible for a work 
that was to be pregnant with the destiny of unborn millions of human beings, 
it is not exaggeration to describe as one of the wonders of the world. 

James Nevins Hyde. 

Men and women chosen by Divine Providence to do a mighty work for 
human liberty, whereof we, and all American people, and the innumerable 
millions more that are to come — are the inheritors. 

Edwin S. Crandon. 

Men whom the Lord, and not the King, made great; 
And who, themselves, were both a church and State. 

John Pierpont. 



IV 

THE PILGRIMS AT SCROOBY 

THE church at Scrooby was gathered in 1606. Four 
years earlier, or a year before Elizabeth died and 
James succeeded her, a Separatist church had been 
organized at Gainsborough, on the Trent, about twelve 
miles away. So much opposition began to be encountered 
by this Gainsborough flock, and so many of the members 
were from Scrooby and the immediate vicinity, that it was 
deemed advisable by these members, at the date just men- 
tioned, to withdraw and form a second congregation in 
their own community. In disregard of whatever failures 
there had been in the past, and in defiance of whatever 
dangers and hardships the future might have in store for 
them, these brave souls took their stand for religious liberty 
and the rights of conscience. This stand it was their sol- 
emn purpose to maintain unto the end; and grandly did 
they succeed. The tyranny which drove them from their 
homes and despoiled them of their earthly goods, failed 
utterly to drive them from their high resolve. They were 
forced to change their local habitation and to plant and 
nourish their institutions first in a foreign land, and then 
on far distant shores which were under the jurisdiction of 
their own sovereign; but they carried their independent 
and self-governing church with them — never abandoned 
it ; never dissolved it ; and, on the basis of the simple Chris- 
tian democracy on which it was organized three hundred 
years ago in that narrow hamlet of Scrooby, it still exists 
in the Old Colony at Plymouth. Under stress of both 
doctrinal and spiritual necessity this church at Plymouth 
has been compelled, it is true, to become once more a Separa- 



54 THE PILGRIMS 

tist church, yet it still exists in an unbroken continuity 
of life, and loyal to the same fundamental conceptions of 
the Christian faith on which it was originally founded. 



This gathering of the Scrooby church was a sign of the 
times and in line with the drift of things. Rough and 
Rose and Fitz had appeared on the stage and 
A sign of done their work and gone hence. Browne fol- 
the times lowed them with a ringing testimony, and then 
went back on himself and his ideas ; but Separa- 
tism, with unabated vigor and determination, kept moving 
forward, and Separatists continued to increase. In no 
wise discouraged by the strange collapse of Browne, Francis 
Johnson came to the front. In 1592 he was chosen pastor 
of a Separatist church in London. This body was notable 
not only for its numbers, but for the ability and character 
of the men whom it attracted into its fellowship. In proof 
of this it is enough to cite the names of Greenwood and 
Barrowe. These men would have dignified any cause. 

Dates and numbers are difficult to fix. But in the later 
eighties and early nineties Separatists were well in evidence 
in London. They seemed to be springing up in all sections 
of the city. 

Dr. Dexter, in a passage whose facts need the exact 
setting which his graphic words give them in order to be 
most impressive and effective, says : " We trace these people 
in winter to as many as seven or eight different private 
houses in various parts of the city ; and in milder weather 
to a garden house near Bedlam, and to the woods of Dept- 
ford and Ratcliffe, and the secluded gravel-pits of Ishngton. 
We have glimpses of as many as twelve or fourteen different 
expounders who appear to have labored with them. And 
there is evidence that they were accustomed thus to assem- 
ble to the number sometimes of sixty or one hundred ; while, 
when the officers were very diligent in hunting them, so 
many of them might be put in prison, that their meetings 
would fall in attendance to a score or less. Sometimes they 



THE PILGRIMS 55 

would be nearly all incarcerated at once, and then manage 
to have a little service together in* prison perhaps, after the 
midnight manner of Paul and Silas at Philippi. We have 
the names of twenty-four who — some of them after long 
and wasting confinement — died in various dungeons, 
the majority in Newgate. Fifty-nine who were at one 
time in durance thus for conscience' sake in the Gatehouse, 
the Fleet, Newgate, Bridewell, the Clink, the White Lion, 
the Wood Street Counter, and the Poultry Counter, united 
in signing a petition to the lord treasurer ; stating that 
they had endured great hardships, many of them having 
been shut up for a year and a half, some in irons, some in 
straits for proper food, and suffering from the miasmas of 
their confinement; pleading that they might have a fair 
public hearing, and be made examples of, if they were found 
worthy of death or bonds ; but if not, that they might be 
bailed out, so as to be in a condition to provide by honest 
labor for the support of their families and themselves ; or, 
if not that, that they might at least be shut up together, so 
as to have some comfort and help of each other's society," 

That the number of people who were of this way of think- 
ing should multiply was inevitable. Men who were at once 
intelligent and sincere could not help feeling that the 
church, as it then existed in England, alike in its attitude 
and aims, and in its spirit and method, had departed 
widely from the simple faith and purpose of Him who had 
founded the church and assigned to it the mission it was to 
fulfil in the world. The queen was affording no relief. 
Eyes were turned in vain to Parliament. The press was in 
chains. There was no public opinion to which to make 
appeal. There was nothing at hand but these secret 
assemblies — assemblies, however, which were no longer 
merely secret, as in Mary's day, but distinctly and posi- 
tively Separatist. 

Outside of London there were also Separatist churches. 
How many of them there were it is impossible to tell. It is 
not surprising that such churches should spring up on the 
east coast of England, but it is a bit strange that they 
should be found in the western districts. But truth is con- 
tagious. Right ideas will find lodgment wherever there 



56 THE PILGRIMS 

are intelligent, conscientious, and receptive minds. More 
men than one might suspect were hungry for the bread of 
life. They did not know how to obtain it, but they needed 
it and wanted it. It will excite neither wonder nor suspicion 
that Sir Walter Raleigh, near the time of the martyrdom 
of Greenwood, Barrowe, and Penry, should express the 
fear from his seat in Parliament that there might be as 
many as twenty thousand Brownists in England. 

But whether there were few or many of these assemblies 
of believers, they found the lines fallen to them in any but 
pleasant places. Wherever they appeared, whatever their 
form of government or method of worship, be it under 
Henry, Mary, Elizabeth, or James, as often as the members 
of these congregations were discovered they were trans- 
ferred to jails, and abused and punished as If they had 
been criminals of the deepest dye. They were men and 
women, however, whom threats could not intimidate nor 
soft words cajole. By no pains and penalties could they 
be tortured into playing false to their convictions, and by 
no promises and gifts could they be bribed into disloyalty 
to God. After a quarter of a century and more of persecu- 
tion, these fearless dissenters were still determined to wor- 
ship God and live their lives after the pattern set for them 
on the Mount. Of this the church at Scrooby is abundant 
proof. 

II 

Scrooby is situated about one hundred and fifty miles 
north from London. It is within the borders of Notting- 
hamshire; but it is also close to the counties 
Scrooby ^f Lincoln and York. It is forty-five miles 

from the east coast of England. It is an agri- 
cultural town, limited in area, and with a population which 
probably never exceeded one hundred and fifty. To my 
eye, as it first lay open to view in 1888, and again on 
that memorable day in July, 1891, when it was visited by 
so many of the descendants of the Pilgrims and the ad- 
herents of their faith and polity, it was fair to look upon 
and exceedingly attractive. In a slight irregularity of 



THE PILGRIMS 57 

surface, produced by elevations here and there in alterna- 
tion with sweeps of meadow-land, in fertility of soil, in 
wealth of grass and grain and vegetable, in sheep and cattle 
and horses grazing in fragrant clover, in stacks of straw 
and hay near the yards of the farmhouses, there is much to 
remind one of some of the fairest and most fertile sections 
of northern Illinois. There is this marked difference, how- 
ever, between an agricultural landscape at the season of 
growing or ripening harvests in England and the United 
States — there one never sees any beautiful fields of Indian 
com. Without these fields no farm scenery ever appears 
to me to be quite perfect. Indian corn in the spindle, or in 
the tassel, or with the ripe yellow ears gleaming out 
through the faded husks, is fit subject for painter or poet. 

But Scrooby has associations which illuminate and sanc- 
tify it. It would have been a strange eye which could see 
no glory in those outlying fields and no peculiar radiance 
in those overarching heavens. Those streets were once 
trodden by the feet of men whose touch glorified Plymouth 
Rock and made it a power forever. Those fields were once 
cultivated by toilers whose hands, before seizing and guid- 
ing the plow, had rested reverently in the hand of the 
Master. On the vibrant waves of the sweet, tremulous air 
devout songs and mighty cries once went up into the ear of 
the Lord of Hosts. In the closets of those old homes heaven 
and earth were brought very near together, and men and 
women had the witness of the Spirit that they were the 
children of God and heirs of the everlasting inheritance. 
Impulses to fidelity to Christian truth and to Christian 
living which will never lose their molding energy were 
there received and coined into character. In that narrow 
hamlet, along those roads and lanes, across those fields 
and pastures, men walked with God and they caught the 
rhythm of his step. His secret was there whispered to 
their souls. There they saw Him who is invisible, and were 
made strong to endure whatever of hardship might fall 
to their lot in the coming years. Through quiet waiting 
on God they came into those experiences which are evermore 
the best equipment for effective service in moral spheres. 



58 THE PILGRIMS 



in 

The meeting-place of this Separatist church at Scrooby 
was in the old manor house in which William Brewster 

lived. One can but think how sharp the con- 
The old trast between these gatherings for prayer and 

manor praise and meditation and other gatherings 

house which there had been at one time and another 

within those same apartments. 
As far back as the time of William the Conqueror the 
estate in which this house was located belonged to the arch- 
bishops of York. These lordly ecclesiastics often made the 
house a hunting-lodge, or a place for a few weeks of pleas- 
ant recreation. Besides, the little hamlet was on the line 
of the great thoroughfare from Scotland by way of York 
to London, and travelers going back and forth found it a 
convenient station at which to stop for a little on the 
journey. The mansion, too, was large, having really the 
dimensions of a palace; and kings and princes with their 
royal retinues could be easily accommodated under its roof 
and within its ample rooms. In 1535, so we are told, there 
were in this building not less than thirty-nine chambers or 
apartments. Hence it naturally came about that persons 
whose names are conspicuous on the pages of history often 
tarried there for a night. 

Within the first decade of the thirteenth century King 
John had some association with the place, though the proof 
of his actual presence there fades out into a pale inference. 
Margaret, the sister of Henry VIII, and queen of Scot- 
land through her marriage with James IV, and, as one 
writer has noticed, the ancestress of every sovereign who 
has since occupied the throne of the British Empire, once 
rested there for a night. It was when she was on her 
journey to her new happiness and her awaiting honors, and 
the occasion was made one of great display and jubilation. 
Henry VII, the father of Queen Margaret, in one of his 
progresses, was a guest of the house. It was a place, 
indeed, which seems to have had strong attractions for 
royalty and the notables which are wont to bask in the 



THE PILGRIMS 59 

smiles of kings. Henry VIII gave himself and his attend- 
ants the pleasure of a day's stay at this house when making 
a journey to the north. He was "so charmed by the spot " 
by what he saw of it at this time or some other, that he 
wanted it " for his own," and, as Dr. Dexter tells us, he 
actually bought it a few years afterwards, though at a 
later date it was sold back to the bishop who made provision 
that at his death it should revert to the See of York. Eliz- 
abeth coveted the estate, and sought to secure possession of 
it under a long lease, but Sandys, who was then the arch- 
bishop, had the self-respect and courage to refuse the 
request. 

But of all the rulers and high officials who at one time 
and another were guests or occupants of the old manor 
house, the one who excites in our breasts the most lively 
and pathetic interest is the man who for a decade and a half 
carried the great seal of the lord chancellor of England, 
and then had to surrender it, and, leaving civil affairs alone, 
retire discredited to his archbishopric. Cardinal Wolsey, 
when broken in health and spirit, and excluded from court 
by the ambitious and unscrupulous king whom he had 
served only too faithfully, found here an agreeable retreat. 
He had a right to the retreat and to all the comfort which 
the place could afford him; for it was under his control 
as the highest ecclesiastic of York. How strange it must 
have seemed to him to be there, and how different from the 
days, not very far back, when " no man's pie " was " freed 
from his ambitious finger " ! How little he could have 
imagined that, inside of his fourscore years, a new and ad- 
vanced body of the " pernicious sect of the Lutherans " 
whom he hated so bitterly, and whom he advised the king, 
among the last written words which he gave to the world, 
to " depress," was to have housing and encouragement 
within this ancient enclosure where he was finding refresh- 
ment and repose! How little, too, he could have imagined 
that in the simple but positive attitude which this " perni- 
cious sect " took, and in the few, yet apparently insignifi- 
cant deeds which it did, it was to invest the spot with an 
imperishable human interest! 

But this is what had come to pass. The gates of this 



60 THE PILGRIMS 

manor house were open, and its doors were swinging back 
at the touch of these simple folk — the most of them plain 
farmers — who sought some quiet and secluded retreat 
where they might join with each other in mutual consulta- 
tion, and meet God in reverent and humble worship, and 
make known their common desires at the throne of grace. 
It was no longer mere recreation, nor aimless lounging, nor 
boisterous revelry, to which the walls of that old building 
were witness, but voices of thanksgiving and supplica- 
tion and bendings of the knee to the Almighty. The house 
of rest and refection had become a house of prayer, and 
men were crossing its threshold and occupying its ample but 
secluded rooms that they might hold communion with God, 
and learn and obey his will, and have the exceeding comfort 
of his presence. 

IV 

That of all men in the world William Brewster should 
have been in the old manor house at this particular time, 

is one of the marked providences of the situa- 
A marked tion. Yet it all came about in a very natural 
providence way. Through the system of leases under 

which it was managed, the property fell under 
the control of this wise and detennined Separatist. For 
purely business purposes the estate was for the time 
being in his hands. From 1594 to 1607, or during those 
years which covered the most critical period in the early 
and formative stages of the churches at Gainsborough and 
Scrooby, William Brewster carried the key and opened and 
shut the doors of this most convenient palatial residence. In 
this simple circumstance what aid there was to a despised 
and struggling cause ! How much there was in it to shape 
destiny ! How different might have been the outcome of 
the whole contest had some man other than William Brew- 
ster held the lease to that estate during the eventful years 
when these individual dissenters needed, not only a leader 
of sagacity and resources, but just such an opportunity 
as this building afforded to be welded into a united, com- 
pact, and enduring body ! 



THE PILGRIMS 61 

" The threads our hands in blindness spin 
No self-determined plan weaves in; 
The shuttle of the unseen powers 
Works out a pattern not as ours." 

It Is easy to imagine how these people gathered for medi- 
tation and worship on the Lord's Day. The picture is 
half pathetic, and yet pleasant to contemplate. No bell 
summoned them, and no tap of drum ; and no palfrey bore 
them easily and ostentatiously to their extemporized 
sanctuary. On their guard against spies and informers, 
they moved out from their homes with cautious steps and 
minds alert. They were careful not to get bunched in 
too large numbers lest they might attract attention and 
awaken suspicion. One by one, or at most two by two, 
they moved on quietly to the place appointed. If it was 
necessary for one here or there to hurry his pace or to 
slacken it in order to avoid making too large a group, the 
thing was instinctively done. Instead of hngering about 
the doorway and extending kindly greetings and asking 
after neighbors and friends who might be ill, they all passed 
in and were quickly out of sight. These simple but sincere 
and intensely earnest men and women were William Brew- 
ster's guests. They were in his home on his invitation, 
and he treated them with an open-handed hospitality. Not 
only did he open his doors to them and furnish them with 
suitable apartments for their meetings, but he looked after 
their bodily comfort and fed and refreshed them. " Long 
afterwards, and far away, they remembered their meetings 
in Brewster's home, and that ' with great love he enter- 
tained them when they came, making provision for them to 
his great cost.' " 

But the old manor house is gone. Long ago it became 
a mere tradition. Inside of fifty years probably, after 
Brewster and his associates in faith made it their gathering 
place, it was taken down, and a farmhouse was erected 
on or near the site of it. This is what one sees who visits 
the spot now — an ordinary English farmhouse. 

Other facts and incidents of special interest in regard to 
the town and manor house are given by Dr. Griffis in his 
" Pilgrims In Their Three Homes." But one who wishes 



62 THE PILGRIMS 

to make an exhaustive study of the subject, and to know 
all which it seems possible to know concerning the locality 
and the house, will turn to " The England and Holland of 
the Pilgrims " by the Dexters. The few details here sup- 
plied, however, would seem to be enough to furnish a clear 
notion of the historical setting and the natural environ- 
ment of the little Pilgrim church at Scrooby. It is doubtful 
if either the interesting story of the sharp contests of the 
past which had taken place within their bounds, or the 
soft, beautiful landscape in the midst of which their hves 
were cast, had much influence on the minds and hearts of 
the Separatists. Life with them was too strenuous for this 
kind of indulgence or gratification. They were too much 
concerned with the grave questions then and there confront- 
ing them ; too much on fire with zeal for a holy cause to 
give thought to historical researches, or to yield to the spell 
of esthetic attractions. How to recover and be secure in 
their natural rights of walking with God in ways approved 
by their own reason and conscience was what filled their 
minds and controlled their actions. 



It is here at Scrooby, In connection with the little Separa- 
tist church which met in the old manor house, that we 

make our first acquaintance, or, if we have 
Names of known something of them before, come into 
leaders rnore intimate association with names which 

are dear to the hearts of their descendants on 
this side of the water, and some of which are destined to 
endure as long as the Pilgrim story shall be told. 

VI 

Any enumeration of the men of influence who composed 
the Scrooby church must begin with Richard Clyfton. He 

was a Derbyshire man, and past fifty years 
Clyfton of age when he openly identified himself with 

the Separatist movement. Bradford in his 
commendation of his abihty. and character links his name 
with Robinson and Brewster, and says of him that he was 



THE PILGRIMS 63 

" a grave and revered preacher, who by his pains and dili- 
gence had done much good, and under God had been the 
means of the conversion of many." Considering how tilings 
were going with the average minister in those days this 
was high tribute, especially the avowal that " under God " 
he was " the means of the conversion of many." Neither 
Paul nor Edwards nor Finney nor Spurgeon would have 
thought anything better could be said of himself and his 
work. 

For years he was settled at Babworth, seven or eight 
miles distant from Scrooby. He was the minister whom 
young Bradford used to go ten miles or more to hear, and 
who helped the earnest lad into the light and joy of salva- 
tion. This was while he was still a clergyman in the Es- 
tablished Church. Just why and when he left Babworth — 
abandoned a hving for Separatism — are questions on 
which we have no light, except the inference that he was a 
devoted and conscientious minister of the gospel, and could 
no longer reconcile it to his moral sense to remain in a 
compromising attitude. A man at once intelligent, faith- 
ful, and sincere, his honest study of the Scriptures and his 
earnest preaching of the truth as he found it, could hardly 
have failed to convince him that his place was with the 
despised and persecuted few who had come to see their duty 
in the new light, which was, after all, only the old light 
rekindled. 

He was the first pastor of the flock which gathered from 
Sunday to Sunday in the old manor house. This was only 
natural; for he was an accredited minister, a man of 
marked ability, of high character and deep conviction, 
well known in the vicinity, and personally known, most 
likely, to the larger number of the congregation, and well 
fitted by age and experience to be a trustworthy guide 
and comforter in those times of perplexity and trouble. 
Hence he was one to whom this afflicted people would turn 
in confidence. Whether he had been duly " called " and 
regularly " installed " in the office of pastor by the circle 
of believers with whom he was associated is a matter of 
small concern. Some things look as if there had been 
no formal action of this kind, especially the fact — a fact 



64 THE PILGRIMS 

whose significance seems to have been overlooked by those 
who have debated this question — that Robinson is known 
to have been recognized as the pastor of this church while 
yet in Amsterdam. Neither the people nor Robinson 
would have consented to displace Clyfton had he ever been 
formally estabhshed in this position. Still, though only 
" acting " pastor, as we should say, he was pastor ; and 
the hungry sheep looked up to him and were fed. 

Clyfton was one of the last of the Scrooby company to 
reach Holland. He had remained behind evidently to aid 
in covering the retreat. He was deeply interested in the 
questions which were exciting and confusing the minds of 
many of the Separatists at Amsterdam, and his pen had a 
share in the discussions which the bitter controversy awak- 
ened. He did not join in the removal from Amsterdam to 
Leyden. He had a warm esteem for the Scrooby brethren, 
and in turn he was warmly esteemed by them, but respon- 
sibihties and anxieties seem to have aged him prematurely, 
and he had no heart for further searchings for a home. 
When Robinson and his adherents decided to journey fur- 
ther, Clyfton sought and received a letter of dismission 
from the Scrooby church and of recommendation to the 
" Ancient Church," of which we shall hear somewhat more, 
in Amsterdam. This ended his connection — a brief, but 
an honorable and helpful connection — with the Pilgrim 
movement. In 1616, at the age of sixty-three, Clyfton 
died. He died comparatively young, but he had fallen 
into line with the providence of God, and his life was made 
an effective force for the bettering of things in church and 
state. 

But the men who were most prominent in this movement, 
and whose influence was the most commanding, and whose 
figures cast the longest shadows across the centuries, were 
Brewster, Bradford, and Robinson. 



THE PILGRIMS 65 



VII 

William Brewster was at once a man of convictions and 
of affairs. He knew how to bring things to pass. In natu- 
ral sagacity, in trustworthiness, in courage, and in expe- 
rience, he was eminently quahfied to be a leader. 
Brewster Both the place and time of his birth are mat- 

ters of inference. The strong probabilities 
are that Scrooby was his native town. Most writers assert 
this without much hesitation. Indications point to 1566 
as the year when he was bom. Steele, in his " Life of 
Brewster " makes the year 1560. In fixing on this date he 
followed Morton, who was clearly in the wrong. Dexter 
brought to hght an affidavit made by Brewster at Leyden in 
1609 in which he asserted that he was " about forty two " 
years of age. This would locate his birth in 1567. But 
the " about " in the statement, and other considerations not 
necessary to be named, justify the conclusion that 1566 is 
the correct date. The month and the day cannot be 
determined. 

Young Brewster entered Peterhouse College at Cam- 
bridge University in the latter part of 1580. There is no 
evidence that he completed a full course of instruction. On 
the contrary it is quite clear that he did not. But while 
his opportunities for formal culture were hmited, and 
practical affairs rather than lectures and books were made 
his teachers, it is to be said that in association with persons 
of learning and eminence, in successfully meeting the grave 
and dehcate responsibilities which were thrown upon him, 
and in chances afforded him to study the hves and char- 
acter and to observe the manners and customs of people 
other than the English, he soon came to have what must be 
regarded as much more than the equivalent of an ordinary 
hberal education of his time. He knew not a little of books, 
and he knew a great deal of men. He was the providential 
man of the hour. It is difficult to see how there could have 
been any Scrooby movement without Brewster to be the or- 
ganizing and directing force of it. Touch these Scrooby 
people anywhere, and it is the throb of Brewster's life that 

5 



66 THE PILGRIMS 

is felt. Trace any of the streams of their most important 
actions, and Brewster will be found to be the fountain from 
which the streams flow. 

How came William Brewster into this knowledge of men 
and the varied experience which fitted him so pecuharly for 
the service he was to render? He had native gifts, it is 
clear, especially in the line of things practical, quite above 
the average ; but how came he to know the world so well, and 
to have an experience so much wider than the other Separa- 
tists with whom he was identified.'' The answer is near at 
hand and simple. It lies folded up in the career of WilHam 
Davison. 

Davison, starting in public life as private secretary to 
Sir Henry Killigrew, an EngHsh ambassador, came to 
hold a high position in the court of Elizabeth ; 
Davison's g^j^jj^ while he ultimately fell out of her favor 
influence g^jj^j jj^^^j ^q suffer for it, the queen had so 
on Brew- much confidence in his loyalty and tact, that 
^^^^ in the earher period of his poUtical life she 

was wont to employ him in some of the many 
diflicult tasks of diplomacy in which she was always en- 
gaged. It was this man who was sent by Ehzabeth to 
Scotland in 1583 to prevent the formation of a treaty, 
offensive and defensive, which Catherine de Medici, acting 
through her son, Henry HI, who was the nominal, but only 
the nominal, ruler of France at this time, was trying to 
conclude with James VI, who was subsequently to appear 
on the stage as James I of England. It was this man who, 
a couple of years after having tried his skill at secret 
negotiations in Scotland, was made the queen's envoy to 
Holland to fix the terms on which the Dutch were to receive 
the aid of England in their unutterably significant and 
tremendous struggle with Spain. Thus Brewster was close 
to the springs of action at a momentous hour in the history 
of liberty and independent thinking and self-government. 
To be associated with such a man at such a crisis in the 
progress of church and state, was a rare opportunity for 
getting into touch with men and movements. 

Just when or where or on what conditions Brewster first 
entered the service which in no long time brought him into 



THE PILGRIMS 67 

close personal relations with Davison is not known. It 
has been conjectured that on the mission of diplomacy 
from the court of Elizabeth to the court of James, to which 
reference has just been made, the envoy may have stopped 
at the manor house, and had his attention attracted to 
the boy — now well along toward young manhood — by 
some particular act of efficiency and courtesy, or by his 
general intelligence and promise. It is possible, however, 
that the two had never met at Scrooby, or, if they had, 
had never had any intercourse, and that Brewster was 
originally employed by Davison on the recommendation 
of influential personages at York — bishops or their subor- 
dinates — inasmuch as these men knew both the father 
and son ; or by instructors of standing at Cambridge who 
may naturally be supposed to have had a high idea of the 
merits and prospects of their recent pupil. 

But in whatever way it had been brought about Brewster 
was with Davison, and he had all the advantages which 
intimate association with him, at a time when he had im- 
portant duties to discharge both abroad in Holland and at 
home in London, could possibly afford. These advantages 
were all the greater because of the special interest which 
Davison took in the young man ; for, from the outset, 
Brewster seems to have had a warm place in the love and 
confidence of his superior. Bradford tells us that this 
high officer of state esteemed his assistant as a son rather 
than a servant, and was so assured of his discretion and 
fidelity' that he gave him the preeminence among those 
about him, and was wont to commit to him the handling of 
matters which required special skill and secrecy. It im- 
poses no strain on probability to imagine that the two 
may have talked together of the things of God and the 
soul as well as of diplomacy and war. 

Indeed this is more than probable. " Davison," as Dr. 
Griffis says, " had long lived in Antwerp, where his children 
were bom, and where he was an elder in the English Puri- 
tan Church." He was a man of sufficient ability and intelh- 
gence to understand thoroughly the underlying issues of the 
great struggle between Holland and Spain, and likewise 
the life-and-death contest which the forces of conservatism 



68 THE PILGRIMS 

and progress were waging in England ; and he was a man 
of sufficient heart and moral earnestness to be deeply con- 
cerned for the welfare of religion. He saw that a true, 
vital faith and the interests of the people were bound up 
in one bundle. Brewster, with his nature and training and 
connections, could not sit at the feet of such a teacher and 
listen to his sober and confidential opinions on current ques- 
tions without getting a new conception of the import and 
dignity of the problems which were pressing for solution, 
and feeling the currents of a fresh enthusiasm pulsing in 
his soul, and becoming in every way broader and larger. 

Writers whose pages cover the Holland and London sec- 
tions of the career of Brewster are fond of telling us how 
the keys of Flushing — one of the cities assigned for the 
time by Holland to England in pledge of the good faith 
of the Dutch, and of their purpose to meet the obligations 
of the new treaty made with Elizabeth — were put into his 
keeping, and that he slept with them under his pillow ; and 
how the gold chain with which the Dutch States had hon- 
ored Davison in testimony of their appreciation of his char- 
acter and sendees, on their return and arrival in England, 
was placed by the distinguished ambassador on his cher- 
ished attendant, that thus decorated he might make his 
progress up to London and be ushered into the presence of 
the queen. It is no wonder. Such stories have their value 
as showing the kind of men Davison and Brewster both were. 
They show, too, the tender consideration with which the 
older uniformly treated the younger and the genuine stuff 
of which the younger was thought to be made. 

But the significant facts — the facts to be emphasized 
— are that Brewster was in close association with a man 
who had the intelligence and training, the commanding 
character and standing among his fellows, and the positive 
Puritan convictions of Davison ; that through Davison he 
was made acquainted with the methods and initiated into 
some of the mysteries of diplomatic circles and court life; 
and that his residence among the Dutch in circumstances 
which enabled him to get at both the inside and outside life 
of the people must have given him a fresh sense of the worth 
and practicability of rehgious freedom. These were the 



THE PILGRIMS 69 

opportunities and influences extending through a year in 
Holland and an indefinite though considerable time in Lon- 
don, by which there came to him the wide experience that 
made him a clear-headed man of affairs, and fitted him in 
due time to be an intelligent and resolute Separatist leader. 
Had this young Englishman been a dull student of history 
and a purblind observer of passing events, he must have 
learned something of consequence about civil and religious 
liberty from this daily minghng with a people whose blood 
had fertilized the soil they had wrested from the sea, in 
whose homes there were innumerable sad yet proud memen- 
tos of the patriotic devotion of fathers and sons, and whose 
great leader had but recently paid the price of his great- 
ness by falling at the hands of an assassin. He was, how- 
ever, neither a dull student nor a purblind observer, but 
an open-eyed onlooker, a man capable of rational reflec- 
tions and sober conclusions, and we may be sure that he 
came back to his native land with a new confidence in de- 
mocracy for both state and church. 

But after so much time spent with Davison, and all in 
a way so satisfactory, why did Brewster return to Scrooby.'' 

The story is startling in the surprise of it, and 
Why Brew- uncovers one of those strange turns in provi- 
ster left dence which seem so insignificant in themselves, 
Davison jj^t which are immeasurably important in the 

final issues which they determine. For reasons 
of state it was decided that Mary Stuart must be put out 
of the way. This fair and fascinating woman was the 
storm-center of her time. She was the occasion of innu- 
merable plots and intrigues ; and so long as the Queen of 
Scots was permitted to live, neither the throne on which 
Elizabeth sat, nor the Reformation, nor the peace of the 
realm, was thought to be secure. Held in imprisonment for 
eighteen years — first at Lochleven, and during the latter 
part of the term in Fotheringay Castle, and, after many 
schemes for rising to power and advancing the Catholic 
cause, finally detected in what is known in history as the 
Babington conspiracy to murder the queen — Mary was 
at length pronounced guilty by a commission of peers, 
who tried her. There was a wide demand for her immedi- 



70 THE PILGRIMS 

ate execution. " The streets of London," so Green says, 
" blazed with bonfires, and peals rang out from steeple to 
steeple at the news of the condemnation." But Elizabeth 
shrank from this last step. Only under a pressure which 
she felt unable to resist did she consent to sign the death- 
warrant. It fell to Davison, who, in virtue of his abilities 
and character, had risen to be full secretary of state, to 
have conspicuous connection with this transaction. For an 
act in which he did exactly what she told him to do, the 
queen, in the fury of one of her strange caprices, deprived 
him of his office, and thrust him into the Tower. No en- 
treaties of his friends could induce the unreasonable ruler 
to restore him to his place, or remit his fine, wliich was 
ruinously heavy. At length he appears ta have been re- 
leased from prison ; but he was a broken man and did not 
long survive the unjust and bitter treatment. But as long 
as he could be of service to his chief, Brewster did not desert 
him. He stood by him in his humiliation and need. At 
length there was no more which he could do and no further 
occasion for his service. The young secretary was set 
adrift, and there was left him, quite likely, no alternative 
but to go back to Scrooby. Here in a short time he suc- 
ceeded his father in the management, under lease from the 
archbishop of York, of the estate on which the manor 
house was situated. He was also appointed to the position 
which we should call that of postmaster ; though the duties 
of the office were not receiving and distributing letters, but 
attending to the forwarding of despatches and facilitating 
the movements of messengers. The position was one of 
honor, and the salary was a liberal one for the time, 
' But the significant fact is that it was the beheading of 
Mary, Queen of Scots, which took Brewster back to Scrooby. 

As it seems to be evident from a study of the 
The Queen facts that Brewster was the organizing spirit 
of Scots and ^f the Separatists of Scrooby, and that, as has 
Plymouth been said already, it is very doubtful if there 
Bock gygj. would have been any Scrooby church and 

any Scrooby movement had it not been for 
Brewster and the manor house, so it is highly probable 
that had it not been for the taking off of the head of this 



THE PILGRIMS 71 

long-imprisaned and menacing Mary Stuart, Brewster 
would not have been at Scrooby and in the manor house, 
but would have remained in the service of the crown, so long, 
at any rate, as Ehzabeth continued to reign, and easily 
risen to the place of a high secretary or ambassador to 
foreign courts. ReUef would have come in other ways, 
doubtless, and from other sources, and the Separatist move- 
ment would have found other hands to guide it and othei 
channels in which to flow; but the stages of progress would 
not have been just what they were ; and the connection - m 
a certain sense so sternly logical - between the death of 
Mary, Queen of Scots, and Plymouth Rock would not have 
been so close and manifest. That death was a significant 
link in the mighty chain of God's providence. 

vni 

WilUam Bradford is a name that we speak with tender 
reverence. In the rare group of men who stood at the 
front and were largely influential in directing 
Bradford the affairs of the New England colonies in their 
initial stages, he was conspicuous for his lov- 
ableness. Not so headstrong and overzealous as Endicott, 
not so well quahfied to conduct large business enterprises 
and to take broad views of statesmanship as Winthrop, not 
so self-wiUed and aggressive as Williams, not so acute as 
Haynes, nor so philosophical and profound m his thmkmg 
on fundamental principles as Hooker, not so poised m mas- 
sive common sense and old-world dignity as Eaton nor so 
brilliant and eloquent as Davenport, he was yet the supe- 
rior of them all in sweetness. He had the chanty which 
covers a multitude of sins and the fine patience which avoids 
mistakes by making haste slowly. He could be firm when 
occasion called for firmness, and he was never known to be 
false to his convictions; but he was always kmd and con- 
siderate. His heart was a fountain of sympathies from 
which men in need could draw at will. , n ,j 

The place where Bradford was bom is Austerfield, a 
little hamlet lying just beyond Bawtry, and about two miles 



72 THE PILGRIMS 

directly north of Scrooby. The church in which he was 
baptized was the small bit of ancient architecture called 
St. Helen's, in the same town. But neither the day nor the 
month nor even the year in which this child with so large and 
fruitful a future came into the world is certain ; though it is 
probable that his birth occurred in the early part of 1589. 
If this guess is right, Bradford and Endicott were of the 
same age. Winthrop was a year older, while Roger Williams 
was little more than an infant in arms when Bradford 
was compelled to leave England for Holland. Brewster 
was at least twenty-two and possibly twenty-three years 
his senior. Very closely, however, were the hearts of the 
two men knit together in mutual respect and in loyalty to 
a common cause. From first to last, in England and Hol- 
land and America, they Hved in an unbroken and beautiful 
fellowship. " My dear and loving friend " is the language 
with which Bradford characterized him when the faithful 
elder had laid aside the burden of his fourscore years and 
passed on to share in the rewards and glories of the world 
beyond. 

For meeting the storm which was about to break upon 
them, Brewster had the advantage in maturity of mind and 
in knowledge of affairs and in varied experience ; but Brad- 
ford had come into the faith at a time in life and in a way 
to kindle his whole soul with enthusiasm and make him both 
daring and efficient. It is worth much to any man to have 
had a sharp and definite initiation into the divine life. This 
man was bom early into the kingdom and after a pro- 
nounced struggle. 

Affliction was the schoolmaster which brought him to 
Christ. His father died when he was less than two years 
of age, and not long after this bereavement he was deprived 
of his mother. At six he lost his grandfather; and the 
future care and training of the lad fell to the charge of 
his uncles. Before he was twelve he was visited with a severe 
illness. Bodily pain and suffering did for him what his 
uncles had neither the disposition nor the ability to under- 
take. The Bible was opened to his understanding, the 
privileges which all souls have in the Redeemer were re- 
vealed to him, and through the ministry of the Spirit and 




BRAUFOHD COTIAGK, AUSI EKFIKLI) 




Tin: c 111 Kcn IN Ai sri;nrii:i.i) 



THE PILGRIMS 73 

the counsel of faithful friends — more especially the counsel 
of the Rev. Richard Clyfton, who was then pastor of the 
church at Babworth, and afterward for a brief time pastor, 
or at any rate acting pastor, of the church at Scrooby — 
he came under the power of the endless life, and in a little 
time identified himself, heart and soul, with the Separatists. 

Efforts were made to dissuade him from his course; but 
" neither could the wrath of his uncles, nor the scoff of his 
neighbors, now turned upon him as one of the Puritans, 
divert him from his pious inclinations." He had had such 
a well-defined experience of the love of God in Christ and 
of his forgiving grace, he had such regard for truth, he 
saw the way of duty so clearly, and he was so convinced of 
the transcendent value there is in a divinely enlightened 
and approving conscience, that he preferred the loss of all 
things, and even life itself, to the surrender of his faith. It 
is this kind of experience which makes men lion-hearted, 
and gives to the CromweUs of the world the invincible 
Ironsides with which to fight their battles. In the adhe- 
sion of Bradford to the Separatist cause Brewster was re- 
enforced not only by a choice man, but by a man who had 
seen the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending 
and descending, and who had been inwardly girded by the 
Almighty. 

Eminent for his sweetness of disposition and his many 
lovable traits, it must not be thought for a moment that 
Bradford was in any wise a weak man. On the contrary, 
he had aptitudes, and a combination of qualities which made 
him very strong. His immediate ancestors seem to have 
had some local distinction. He inherited a httle property. 
There are indications that he moved in the best circles of 
the community. But the talk of which he was likely to 
hear most was of farming operations and prospects, while 
his school privileges were necessarily limited. He had the 
inclinations and tastes of a scholar, and the versatihty which 
would have given him success in any one of the departments 
of learning then open to students, and he may have longed 
in his youthful days to go up to Cambridge, as Brewster 
had done ; but there was no one to send him, or to lend him 
encouragement in his aspirations. But in quickness of 



74 THE PILGRIMS 

apprehension, in moral integrity, in every-day wisdom, and 
in capacity for culture, there were few to surpass him. 
Above all, he was a man of weight. When he, with his 
sound judgment and unimpeachable character, was put into 
the scales, it took an immense amount of avoirdupois on the 
other side to send him to the beam. 

Cotton Mather, a writer full of conceit, it is true, and 
given to extravagance in his estimate of men whom he ap- 
proved, has this to say of Bradford : " He was a person 
for study as well as action ; and hence, notwithstanding the 
difficulties through which he passed in his youth, he attained 
unto a noble skill in language. The Dutch tongue was 
become almost as vernacular to him as the English. The 
French tongue he could manage. The Latin and Greek he 
had mastered. But the Hebrew he most of all studied; 
because, he said he would see with his own eyes the ancient 
oracles of God in their native beauty. He was also well 
skilled in history, in antiquity, and in philosophy. And 
for theology, he became so versed in it, that he was an 
irrefragable disputant against the errors — especially those 
of Anabaptism which, with trouble, he saw rising in his 
colony. Wherefore he wrote some significant things for the 
confutation of those errors. But the crown of all was his 
holy, prayerful, watchful and fruitful walk with God, 
wherein he was very exemplary." Considering the differ- 
ence in the standards of learning by which men were judged 
two hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago and those 
by which conclusions are now reached, this opinion of 
the author of " Magnaha Christi Americana " cannot be 
thought to be far out of the way. 

Bradford had not reached his majority when he was 
forced, with his associates, to leave his native land; but 
the boy was father of the man, and the stand he took thus 
early was prophetic of his future fideUty and usefulness. 



THE PILGRIMS 75 



IX 



John Robinson had a large, well-trained mind, and a 
clear perception of the situation. His courage was un- 
flinching, yet not noisy. The spirit of con- 
Robinson ciliation and self-sacrifice marked his conduct; 
but nothing could induce him to surrender his 
loyalty to truth and duty. His character was admirable 
alike for its purity and simplicity, and its capacity to stand 
hard strains. Never impulsive and rash, he could be 
counted on in emergencies. Possessing and illustrating 
these qualities, he naturally became the most commanding 
figure in the circle of the exiles. He was not a reformer 
like Luther; he was not the originator of a system of 
theology like Calvin ; he was not a determined and aggres- 
sive preacher like Knox ; he lacked the organizing genius 
of Wesley ; but for all this he was a great man as well as 
a good man, and multitudes in England and America rise 
up and call him blessed. 

It comes to be monotonous to have to make the same 
statement over and over again concerning the men who were 
at the forefront in the Puritan and Separatist movement; 
but it is a fact in regard to Robinson, as well as many 
others who have been named, that both the time and place 
of his birth, after all efforts made to discover them, still 
remain in obscurity. All that can be affirmed is that he 
was probably a native of Gainsborough, and that his year 
was either 1575 or 1576. If the Cambridge University 
records are followed, his birth must be assigned to the 
former of these dates ; but if the Leyden register is right, 
then the latter date is the correct one. 

In fairness, however, it ought to be said that a part of 
this confusion and uncertainty may be attributed to the 
unsettled state of chronology at this period. There was 
not only the double way of Old Style and New Style em- 
ployed in reckoning time, but the year began on different 
days in different countries. In Holland, in the seventeenth 
century, the year began with January first ; but in Eng- 
land the legal year began on the 25th of March. Some of 



76 THE PILGRIMS 

these differences in dates may have their explanation in 
this fact. 

Robinson entered Corpus Christi College in 1592. He 
took the full course, graduated, and in due time, in virtue 
of his scholarship and promise, secured a 
A Cam- fellowship. This was no small distinction, 

bridge Whatever his origin and social standing, this 

man predestined leader of thought and guide of 

action was not only a man of abihty but of 
learning. Congregationalists come legitimately by their 
traditional interest in schools and colleges. Three of these 
Scrooby men — Clyfton, Brewster, and Robinson — had 
studied at Cambridge University, and two of them had 
graduated. Smyth of Gainsborough was also a Cambridge 
graduate. To put a low estimate on education is false, 
not only to one of the most cherished aims of the Puritans 
of the Bay Colony, but to the memory of the most eminent 
Pilgrim of Scrooby and Leyden, and others associated with 
him. 

Having completed his studies at Cambridge, Robinson 
took orders in the Estabhshed Church. His conversion 
and no doubt his decision to be a minister of 
Took orders Jesus Christ were largely due to Rev. William 
m Estab- Perkins, who was the public catechist of his 
lished college and a warm evangelical preacher of 

Church great power. It goes without saying that a 

clergyman of this spirit and purpose must 
have been a Puritan ; but he was a conforming Puritan. 

About the close of the old and the beginning of the new 
century Robinson left Cambridge and went to Norwich, 
or the immediate vicinity. But he was a new 
Saw duty century man. Cambridge in comparison with 
in new Oxford was a new century university. Nor- 

light wich was a new century town. The same in- 

fluences that had stirred the soul of Browne in 
both these centers of new century thinking, and confirmed 
him in his Separatist notions, powerfully affected Robinson. 
He was in a strait betwixt two. Should he sever his rela- 
tions with the great body of believers with which he was 
connected — cut loose finally and forever from its compan- 



THE PILGRIMS 77 

ionship, Its employments, and its promotions, and join for- 
tunes with a few bruised and scattered people who had not 
yet risen to the dimity of a sect, but who were hunted day 
and night by the subservient tools of ecclesiastical and civil 
authority ; or should he remain where he was, hampered 
in his plans, vexed of soul, and with a conscience ill at ease, 
but hoping still to do some little good under the limitations 
which fretted him and which must fret all sincere and ear- 
nest souls ? At the end of four years a sharp turning-point 
was reached in the road which he was traveling. He had 
made such progress in Puritanism, and was so bold in 
proclaiming his opinions, that his bishop could no longer 
tolerate him, and he could no longer remain in the position 
he then occupied. He withdrew from the State Church, 
gave up his fellowship, and stepped out into the world to 
meet and bear whatever might await him. It was all with 
reluctance and pain but the step was taken — never to be 
retraced. One can but admire and pity him as he is seen 
pressing his way through the deep waters of this bitter 
inward conflict. The story is so interesting that he must 
be allowed to tell it himself. This is the revealing passage. 
It is taken from Robinson's elaborate and very able treatise 
on " Dissuasion Against Separatism Considered." 

" I do indeed confess to the glory of God, and mine own 
shame, that a long time before I entered this way, I took 
some taste of the truth in it by some treatises published in 
justification of it, which, the Lord knoweth, were sweet as 
honey unto my mouth ; and the very principal tiling, which 
for the time quenched all further appetite in me, was the 
over-valuation which I made of the learning and holiness 
of these, and the like persons, blushing in myself to have 
a thought of pressing one hair-breadth before them in this 
thing, behind whom I knew myself to come so many miles 
in all other things ; yea, and even of late times, when I had 
entered into a more serious consideration of these things, 
and according to the measure of grace received, searched 
the Scriptures, whether they were so or not, and by search- 
ing found much light of truth ; yet was the same so dimmed 
and over-clouded with the contradictions of these men and 
others of the like note, that had not the truth been in my 



78 THE PILGRIMS 

heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, I had never 
broken those bonds of flesh and blood, wherein I was so 
strictly tied, but had suffered the light of God to have been 
put out in mine own untruthful heart by other men's 
darkness." 

This is large and manly ; but it is the record of a severe 
struggle. Awed and bound by the names of living men 
whom he revered, and by the names of dead men whose 
memory he honored, he was yet able to stand on his own 
feet and reach and rest in his own conclusions. Command- 
ing as some of these names were which were cited against 
him, he had the courage to say, in a sentence immediately 
preceding the passage just quoted, " I neither think them 
so learned but they might err; nor so godly, but in their 
error they might reproach the truth they saw not." A 
wholesome stand this for any man to take; but to take it 
and hold it requires a good deal of moral fiber. 

After the struggle was over, and he was no longer a 
Puritan merely, but a Separatist, Robinson went north. 
But to what place.'' Dr. Dexter thinks he went 
Became a ^q Gainsborough and, in what " must have been 
Separatist ^n impressive scene," offered himself for mem- 
bership in a body of disciples who called them- 
selves, in the language of their compact, " the Lord's free 
people," and who had become united " by a Covenant of 
the Lord, into a Church Estate, in the fellowship of the 
Gospel, to walk in all His ways made known, or to be made 
known, unto them, according to their best endeavors, what- 
soever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them." On 
the contrary, Arber says : " We are not aware of any evi- 
dence tending to prove, in the shghtest degree, that Robin- 
son was ever a member of Smyth's church." His claim is 
that the Gainsborough church was not established until 
1606 — the same year in which the Scrooby people formed 
their church. Hence he declares that " if Robinson went 
north in 1604, he must have gone to Scrooby," The differ- 
ence of opinion is of httle consequence, since Robinson 
surely found his way to Scrooby, became fully identified 
with the Scrooby church, and there began his pronounced 
and influential Separatist career. But whether it was with 



THE PILGRIMS 79 

the church on the Trent, or the church on the Ryton, that 
he first became connected, he subscribed to the same cove- 
nant, and entered into the same vows, and staked all on 
the issue. " Whatsoever it should cost " was the spirit and 
pledge in which he took the step. 

It is not clear just when Robinson came into the pastor- 
ate of the Scrooby church. But be the time when it may 
and the place where it may, the mutual respect 
Beloved ^j^^j affection entertained by Robinson and his 

pastor of people were very marked. Bradford says : 
Scrooby « Such was the mutual love and reciprocal 

chiirch respect that this worthy man had to his flock, 

and his flock to him, that it might be said 
of them as it once was of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius 
and the people of Rome, that it was hard to judge whether 
he delighted more in having such a people, or they in 
having such a pastor. His love was great towards them, 
and his care was always bent on their best good, both for 
soul and body; for besides his singular ability in divine 
things, wherein he excelled, he was also very able to give 
directions in civil affairs, and to foresee dangers and in- 
conveniences ; by which means he was very helpful to their 
outward estates, and so was every way a common father 
unto them." 

So far, however, as residence and work at Scrooby are 
concerned, it was only a very brief and limited opportunity 
which Robinson had for aiding the people and that the 
people had for receiving benefit from his presence. The 
same bitterness of intolerance and hate and the same in- 
genuity and persistence in persecution with which Separa- 
tists were followed in London and Norwich, and wherever 
else they were known to exist, were measured out to them 
in this quiet little hamlet of Nottinghamshire. It was at 
a later period that his associates in exile and the members 
of his flock came to know him in the fulness of his manly 
qualities, in the tenderness and fidelity of his ministry, and 
in the patience and wisdom which fitted him so admirably 
to be their leader. The question has been debated whether 
in the migration from Scrooby the leadership belonged to 
Clyfton or Robinson. The real question is not this, but 



80 THE PILGRIMS 

whether it belonged to Brewster or Robinson. After the 
flight from England the question ceases to be debatable. 
The impression made by the whole narrative, and all the 
side-lights of the story, is that from the hour when he 
reached the full pastorate, whether at Scrooby or Am- 
sterdam or Leyden, until the hour of his lamented death, 
Robinson was both the nominal and the actual head of the 
company. This will become more and more evident as the 
story unfolds. 



The four persons considered in the preceding paragraphs 
were the chief men in the Scrooby fellowship. Unfortu- 
nately they are the only ones of whom we have 
Other much knowledge. Even in these instances we 

exiles have seen at how many points important in- 

formation is lacking. There were others — 
the followers of these leaders and their associates in faith 
and suffering — brave men and true ; but in regard to the 
most of them we know little or nothing. Dexter names 
Richard Jackson, Robert Rochester, Francis Jessop, and 
Gervase Neville, as members of the Scrooby company to 
whom " brief allusions " are made. These " brief allu- 
sions," however, cover at most only a very few facts ; and 
the knowledge to be gained of them from delving in dusty 
archives, and deciphering deeds and certificates and family 
registers and records of one sort and another is provok- 
ingly meager. The large majority of them were obscure 
people. They were without wealth, without learning, and 
without social, political, or ecclesiastical standing. They 
would have hved and died in an obscurity so utter that no 
antiquarian, not to say historian, would ever have thought 
of seeking to know so much about them as their names even, 
had they not identified themselves with a great cause, and 
by heroic struggles and fortitude demonstrated to the world 
the inherent nobleness of their natures. 



THE PILGRIMS 81 



XI 



Here we come upon the secret of these Scrooby men. 
This is where we get our measure of their real quahties. 
It is not in things outward, but in things in- 
The expla- ward, — ideas, intuitions, aspirations, high 
nation of resolves. It cuts no figure that they were 
these men farmers — " plain farmers," as we should say. 
There were other farmers in England, " plain," 
and " gentlemen," — others then, and others before and 
afterwards. But farmers who had ceased to be " plain " 
and become " gentlemen " farmers do not seem in virtue of 
that fact to have counted for any more in the great political 
and moral conflicts of the age. It is the " plain " farmers 
rather than the other kind who have often been the signifi- 
cant factors in hard contests. Was it not " plain " farmers 
*' embattled," who " fired the shot heard round the world," 
of whom Emerson sings ? 

The wonder is often expressed that men with so little learn- 
ing as the larger section of these people had should have 
comprehended the issue so clearly and been so splendidly 
equal to the emergency. Why wonder.? If learning is so 
essential and so assuring of right views and attitudes, why 
were not the great masters of learning and the great centers 
of learning on the right side in the controversies of those 
stormy days.^* The leaders were educated, and it was of all 
consequence that they should be ; but both the leaders and 
their followers were dominated by other influences than mere 
learning. 

It is no ground of surprise, either, that men without social 
recognition should have taken so bold a step and accom- 
plished so much. Social recognition would have been more 
likely to make them acquiescent and contented with things 
as they were. The aristocracy of the realm came and went 
and made no sign. It was nothing to them that the machin- 
ery of state and church was running badly ; that the water 
was low in the stream, that the bands were loose, that cog 
and mesh were not a fit, and that the finished products were 
of a low grade. They were at ease; why fret about such 

6 



82 THE PILGRIMS 

trifles as injustice to the masses, freedom cramped and hin- 
dered, manhood crushed, and hfe rendered abortive? 

The world ought long ago to have learned that it is pre- 
cisely from such people as these at Scrooby — people with 
intelligent, well-instructed, and unselfish leaders, while they 
themselves are sufficiently informed and have enough resolu- 
tion to follow their leaders — that such movements as the 
Pilgrim movement may be expected to originate. These 
men opened their minds and hearts to God. They set their 
consciences to the key of the Ten Commandments. They 
listened to the voice which spoke to them out of the cloud. 
They read the Sermon on the Mount, and applied its great 
teachings to their daily lives. They interpreted their own 
instincts and longings in the interest of the rights of man. 
They put Christ above bishops and the moral law above 
kings. Their thoughts and aims and aspirations exalted 
them. They were a hiunble body of yeomen ; but they were 
wiser than James I. In an hour that was big with fate 
they saw into things more clearly than did Parliament. 
They had a keener and more vital understanding of the 
Scriptures than did the foremost ecclesiastics of the land. 
It is three centuries since Scrooby ; but in the management 
of church affairs, in adequate provision for public schools, 
and in overcoming class distinctions and prejudices, Eng- 
land is not yet up to that little group of rustics who used 
to meet for worship in the old manor house, and whom a 
foolish and headstrong Stuart " harried out of the king- 
dom." The fact to be noted is not that these exiles from 
their native shores were ordinary men, about equal to the 
average or a little above; but that ordinary men, under 
proper stimulation and guidance, are capable of great 
thoughts and heroic deeds. 



V 

THE ESCAPE TO HOLLAND 



Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake: for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach 
you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for 
my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad : for great is your reward in heaven: 
for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. 

Sermon on the Mount. 

The Pilgrims separated Church and State. They beheved in the right 
and power of Cliristian people to govern themselves, and they beheved tnis 
when, even in England, it was dangerous to breathe such an idea. They 
were hunted out of their home-land into the Dutch Republic, where con- 
science was free. — William Elliot Gritfis. 

We can hardly reaUze a condition of society in which law itself was 
struggling for existence; in which everybody and everything was governed 
by the King's will, and was subordinate and contributary to — the royal 
satisfaction. — Edward Arber. 

Why did they suffer the spoihng of their goods, arrest, imprisonment, 
exile ? Their only crime was that, while they rendered to Caesar the things 
that were Caesar's, they would not render to Caesar the things that were 
God's. They had caught from the Bible the idea of a church independent 
alike of the pope and the queen, independent of Parliament as well as of 
prelates, and dependent only on Christ. It was their mission to work out 
and organize the idea ; and, in so doing, they wrought and suffered for their 
posterity in all ages and for the world. — Leonard Bacon. 

And that it cost them something this ensuing history will declare. 

William Bradford. 



THE ESCAPE TO HOLLAND 

IT is difficult to picture to our minds a condition of affairs 
in any civilized country in which a group of people like 
these Separatists at Scrooby should not have been 
congratulated on their exemplary living, solicited to re- 
main and pursue their several callings without let or hin- 
drance, and surrounded with influences fitted to promote 
their welfare and happiness, instead of being forced to 
forsake their homes, abandon scenes and associations which 
were so sacred to their hearts, and give up their most 
cherished worldly prospects. It is still more difficult to 
persuade ourselves that this state of things existed, not 
in Turkey, but in England — the home of our state-build- 
ing ancestors, and the fountainhead, in spite of all the 
tyranny and injustice and persecution which have stained 
the pages of its history, of many of the noblest conceptions 
of justice and fair play, and the best inspirations to hberty 
which the modern world has known. 

But peaceful though they were, and diligent, clean- 
handed, and upright in character, an honor to the sturdy 
yeomanry of the land and an appreciable asset in the wealth 
of the nation, reverent and loyal to the king, and scrupu- 
lously law-abiding in all things save that, hke Daniel of old 
and the apostles, they wished to worship God with a sin- 
cerity and earnestness which were offensive to those of the 
realm who were in charge of religious matters, their lives 
were made intolerable to them. The authorities demanded 
that they should cease to obey their own intelligent and 
conscientious convictions in the concerns of the soul, and fall 
in with forms prescribed for them. They must listen to 



86 THE PILGRIMS 

preachers imposed upon them by the state, even though 
these preachers were often too ignorant to preach and too 
immoral to be respected. They must follow rubrics and 
rituals out of which, for them at least, all vitality had been 
lost, and which stood for nothing but superstitious mum- 
meries, lifeless and void. It is not pathetic alone, but an 
occasion for the hottest kind of righteous indignation, to 
think of the sore straits to which these men and women 
were driven, for no other reason than that they wanted to 
come more completely under the power of the endless life, 
and be more like Him who is the supreme expression of the 
divine purity and love. 

Had these devout souls gathered at the manor house 
Sunday after Sunday for purposes of pleasure and revelry 
they would have been unmolested. Civil functionaries, high 
ecclesiastics, and subservient parsons would have seen noth- 
ing out of the way in the proceeding. To come together to 
hold communion with God, to be instructed in the Word, to 
find strength to bear their burdens and comfort to soothe 
their sorrows, to enter into a more intimate fellowship with 
their Lord and to lift their lives to higher levels of faith, 
and a completer comprehension of truth, to learn how 
to be better and braver and more worthy to be called the 
children of the Father, was quite another affair, and a stop 
must be put to it ! Hence public officials were turned into 
spies and charged to be alert and unsparing in doing the 
bidding of bishop and crown. Culprits like these must be 
run down and punished to the limit. Nonconformists must 
be browbeaten into conformity, or suffer the consequences. 
Laws had been made to stifle soul-freedom ; and these laws 
must be enforced. There was no relief, save in flight, and 
even against flight bars the most cruel had been erected. 



THE PILGRIMS 87 



Bradford has a number of passages in which he sets 
forth, after his graphic fashion, the kind of treatment which 
was accorded to persons who had found their 
How the ^^y jjj^Q i]^Q truth of Christ and were trying 
Scrooby jj^ their lives and worship to be conformed to 

Noncon- j^is will. 

formists The first one is general and has application 

"^^^^ to men and women of this manner of living and 

treated doing wherever they might be discovered. 

" When as by the travail and diligence of 
some godly and zealous preachers, and God's blessing on 
their labors, as in other places of the land, so in the north 
parts, many became enlightened by the word of God, and 
had their ignorance and sins discovered unto them, and be- 
gan by His grace to reform their hves, and make conscience 
of their ways, the word of God was no sooner manifest in 
them, but presently they were scoffed and scorned by the 
profane multitude, and the ministers urged with the yoke 
of subscription, or else must be silenced ; and the poor peo- 
ple were so vexed with apparators, pursuants, and the 
commissarie courts, as truly their affliction was not small; 
which, notwithstanding, they bore sundry years with much 
patience, till they were occasioned (by the continuance and 
increase of their troubles and other means which the Lord 
raised up in those days) to see further into things by the 
hght of the Word of God." 

For years, and in all parts of the kingdom where they 
appeared, there was no liberty and no peace for those who 
sought to discard the " base and beggarly ceremonies " 
which were imposed upon them by the ecclesiastical authori- 
ties, and who refused to submit to " the lordly and tyrannous 
power of the prelates," as " unlawful and antichristian." 

The passage which is to follow has more particular refer- 
ence to the state of affairs at Scrooby, after the brethren 
had been associated for a twelvemonth, and were on the eve 
of making their desperate venture to get away. 

" But after these things they could not long continue in 



88 THE PILGRIMS 

any peaceable condition ; but were hunted and persecuted 
on every side, so as their former afflictions were but as flea- 
bitings in comparison of these which were come upon them. 
For some were taken and clapped up in prison, others had 
their houses beset and watched night and day, and hardly 
escaped their hands ; and the most were fain to fly and 
leave their houses and habitations, and the means of their 
livehhood. Yet these and many other sharper things which 
afterwards befell them, were no other than they looked for, 
and therefore were the better prepared to bear them by the 
assistance of God's grace and Spirit. Yet seeing themselves 
thus molested, and that there was no hope of their continu- 
ance there, by a joint counsel they resolved to go into the 
Low Countries, where they heard was freedom of religion for 
all men ; as also how sundry from London, and other parts 
of the land, had been exiled and persecuted for the same 
cause, and were gone thither, and lived at Amsterdam and 
in other places of the land. So after they had continued 
together about a year, and kept their meetings every Sab- 
bath in one place or the other, exercising the worship of 
God amongst themselves, notwithstanding all the diligence 
and malice of their adversaries, they seeing they could no 
longer continue in that condition, they resolved to get over 
into Holland as they could, which was in the year 1607 and 
1608." 

n 

This resolution cost these about-to-be exiles many a 
sharp and bitter pang. It is to be remembered that the 

Puritans, so Mather teUs us, who arrived in 
Besolution galem in 1629, on leaving the homes in which 
to leave they had been nourished and all the associa- 
and hin- tions of their former years, so far forgot their 
drancesmet sufferings and persecutions that they were 

ready to exclaim, not, " Farewell Babylon ! 
Farewell Rome ! " but " Farewell, dear England ! " To 
these Pilgrims who were the forerunners of the Puritans 
in their flight from the home-land to America, England, 
we may be sure, was " dear " England. " To leave their 



THE PILGRIMS 89 

native soil and country, their lands and livings, and all 
their friends and famihar acquaintance," was " much ; " 
and by many it was thought to be " marvelous." But there 
were embarrassments far more practical than any spring- 
ing from mere sentiment. In going into Holland they 
were going into a country of which they were all — with the 
exception of Brewster — totally ignorant, save what had 
come to them through hearsay. They must learn a new 
language, get their living they knew not how, pay far 
more than they had been accustomed to do for whatever they 
bought, and expose themselves to all the miseries of war. 
No wonder " many thought " this " an adventure almost 
desperate, a case intolerable, and a misery worse than 
death." " But these things did not dismay them ; though 
they did sometimes trouble them ; for their desires were set 
on the ways of God, and to enjoy his ordinances; but 
they rested on His providence, and knew whom they had 
believed." 

It required two systematic attempts, and then a good deal 
of effort of the promiscuous sort, to accomplish the final 
transfer of the Scrooby church from exposure to the cruel 
storms of England to the kindly shelter of Holland. It 
was a strange situation. The irony of it was that the Dis- 
senters and Separatists, though an intelligent and devout 
and exceptionally worthy people, were allowed neither to stay 
nor to go in peace. Or to state it in the exact and pathetic 
language of Bradford : " Though they could not stay, yet 
were they not suffered to go : but the ports and havens were 
shut against them, so as they were fain to seek secret means 
of conveyance, and to bribe and fee the mariners, and give 
extraordinary rates for their passages." For there was a 
law of England that no one could go out of the country 
without license from the king. There was also a law — 
from 1593 to 1598, a specific statute, after that a purpose 
in influential and official circles quite as potent as written 
enactments — to the effect that incorrigible Nonconform- 
ists must leave the realm. The alternatives were sub- 
mission to all ecclesiastical requirements or quitting the 
kingdom. At the same time here was this other law for- 
bidding going abroad without permission from the king. 



90 THE PILGRIMS 

The first plan of getting away was for a large company 
of them to embark from old Boston, a seaport town, on the 
Witham, fifty or sixty miles distant. This was in the au- 
tumn — probably October — of 1607. A suitable ship was 
chartered, agreement was made with the master to be ready 
on an appointed day, and preparations went on in accord- 
ance with this arrangement. The Idle, one of the two 
rivers near the manor house, was navigable for a part of 
the way ; and it is quite likely that the women, children, and 
luggage were sent by water as far as Gainsborough. At 
any rate, this is Arber's conjecture. The men, or so many 
as were not needed to accompany the boat down the Idle, 
might easily reach their destination on foot. All went as 
planned with the exiles. But the vessel was not at hand 
at the appointed date. The party had to wait — with what 
anxiety it is easy to imagine — for a long time, and to be 
at heavy extra expense in consequence of waiting. At length 
the captain appeared ; under cover of darkness the would-be 
emigrants got themselves and their stuff on board the ship ; 
and then, when morning broke and they thought the way 
clear for the successful carrying out of their project, they 
were all betrayed by the miserable scoundrel with whom they 
had conducted their negotiations and whom they trusted. 

It would be an injustice to the reader, who may not have 
ready access to Bradford's book, not to reproduce his ac- 
count of this affair : " But when he had them and their 
goods aboard, he betrayed them, having beforehand com- 
plotted with the searchers and other officers to do so ; who 
took them, and put them into open boats, and there rifled 
and ransacked them, searching them to their shirts for 
money, yea, even the women further than became modesty : 
and then carried them back into the town, and made them a 
spectacle and wonder to the multitude, which came flocking 
on all sides to behold them. Being thus first, by the catch- 
pole officers, rifled and stripped of their money, books, and 
much other goods, they were presented to the magistrates, 
and messengers were sent to inform the lords of the Council 
of them, and so they were committed to ward. Indeed the 
magistrates used them courteously, and showed them what 
favor they could, but could not deliver them, till order came 



THE PILGRIMS 91 

from the Council-table. But the issue was that after a 
month's imprisonment, the greatest part were dismissed, and 
sent to the places from whence they came ; but seven of the 
principal were still kept in prison, and bound over to the 
Assizes." 

Who these "seven" were is not known, save that Brewster 
was one, and that Robinson and Bradford were hkely to 
have been two others. But whoever they were, these "seven" 
were worthy to be enrolled along with another " seven " of 
whom we read in the Book of Acts, who were " men of good 
report, full of the Spirit and of wisdom." 

To have been baffled and turned back in this way must 
have been a severe disappointment to these people, and their 
pecuniary loss must have been great ; but they remained as 
trustful in God, and as brave and determined as ever. 

In the spring — April, it is thought — of the following 
year, 1608, a second effort was made to escape from the 
trials and persecutions to which Separatists were exposed 
in their own home-land. This time another program was 
adopted. Instead of trying to work out by way of Boston 
and the mouth of the Witham, the leaders seem to have con- 
cluded that there was more chance of success by going in the 
direction of Hull and the Humber. Women and cliildren, 
with the goods, were to be placed, as before, on some sort of 
transportation craft, and floated down the Idle, as far as 
Gainsborough, to the Trent; there they were to be trans- 
ferred to a small bark, but suitable for the purpose, and 
taken down the Trent to its confluence with the Humber, 
thirty miles away, and then down the Humber and along 
.the coast to a point settled upon, and now believed to be the 
haven of East Halton Skitter. The men of the party were 
to walk, and to meet the women and children at the time 
and place designated. 

This apparently was the scheme. The attempt to execute 
it involved these earnest souls in a fresh disaster. The bar- 
gain was made with a Dutch master of Zealand, found in 
the port of Hull, who owned the ship he sailed, and who 
gave satisfactory assurances that he would keep his word 
and meet their expectations. We have seen what the plan 
was. " But," as Bradford tells us, " it so fell out, that they 



92 THE PILGRIMS 

were there a day before the ship came, and the sea being 
rough, and the women very sick, prevailed with the seamen 
to put into a creek hard by, where they lay on the ground 
at low water. The next morning the ship came, but they 
were fast and could not stir until about noon. In the mean- 
time, the ship master, perceiving how the matter was, sent 
his boat to be getting the men aboard whom he saw ready, 
walking about the shore. But after the first boat full was 
got aboard, and she was ready to go for more, the master 
espied a great company, both horse and foot, with bills and 
guns and other weapons ; for the country was raised to take 
them. The Dutchman seeing that, swore his country's oath 
— ' sacremente ' — and having the wind fair, weighed 
anchor, hoist sails, and away." Thus were the hopes of 
these smitten Pilgrims blasted once more, and their well- 
wrought plans brought to naught. 

Immediately the plight of both parties — those in the 
vessel and those on shore — became pitiable in the extreme. 
The men were taken oui to sea ; but instead of a quick and 
safe voyage into port, the ship ran into a terrific storm. 
One who has had any experience of rough weather on the 
German Ocean can well understand what that must have 
meant. In a passage in an excellent steamer, only a few 
years since, from Newcastle to Bergen, when the winds were 
only moderately severe, and the waves were far from being 
mountain high, the captain was heard to exclaim at dinner: 
" Well, this is a fine show ! Eighty on board, and only five 
at the table ! " Had he delayed his remark for about one 
minute, the number he named would have been not five, but 
four. The storm into which the ship which bore so many of 
the men of the Pilgrim company ran lasted for seven days, 
and it took fourteen days to reach land. During half this 
time, or the days upon which the storm was upon them, 
" They neither saw sun, moon, nor stars, and were driven 
near the coast of Norway ; the mariners themselves often 
despairing of life ; and once with shrieks and cries gave over 
all, as if the ship had been foundered in the sea, and then 
sinking without recovery." Bradford himself, to whom the 
world is indebted for the facts, was on board of this ship, 
and in those days and nights of fearful hardship and peril, 



THE PILGRIMS 93 

when he and others of like faith were driven to their knees 
in prayer, he must often have thought of Paul and his ex- 
periences of shipwreck and deliverance so long ago in the 
tumultuous waters of the angry Mediterranean. 

But if those who were borne out to sea were forced to en- 
counter darkness and the fierce assaults of swollen waves, 
those who remained behind fared but little better. The 
" great company of both horse and foot, with bills and guns 
and other weapons," whom the master of the ship saw bear- 
ing down on them, soon had the most of these surprised 
exiles in their grasp. Some of the men — those in all prob- 
ability who knew it would be fatal for them to be caught — 
made good their escape ; but others of them, with the women 
and children, were apprehended. Once more it shall be left 
to Bradford to tell the tale : " Pitiful it was to see the heavy 
case of these poor women in this distress : what weeping and 
crying on every side, some for their husbands that were 
carried away in the ship, others not knowing what should 
become of them and their httle ones; others again melted 
in tears, seeing their poor little ones hanging about them, 
crying for fear, and quaking with cold. Being thus appre- 
hended, they were hurried from one place to another, and 
from one justice to another, till in the end they knew not 
what to do with them ; for to imprison so many women and 
innocent children for no other cause but that they must go 
with their husbands, seemed to be unreasonable and all 
would cry out upon them; and to send them home again 
was as difficult, for they alleged, as the truth was, that 
they had no homes to go to, for they had either sold, or 
otherwise disposed of their homes and livings. To be short, 
after they had been thus turmoiled a good while, and con- 
veyed from one constable to another, they were glad to be 
rid of them in the end on any terms ; for all were wearied 
and tired of them. Though in the meantime they — poor 
souls — endured misery enough ; and thus in the end neces- 
sity forced a way for them." 



94 THE PILGRIMS 



III 



This was the last attempt mack by the Pilgrims to cross 
over from England to Holland in a body. A few of the 

men, after their perilous voyage of fourteen 
Effort to days, were there already. It was deemed wiser 
reach Hoi- fQj. ^j^g others to follow them in the same fashion 
land sue- jjj which they had been wont to go to their 
cessful gatherings in the manor house — not in 

groups, but one by one, or by twos and threes. 
In this way they would escape observation and accompHsh 
their purpose. So it was. " And in the end, notwithstand- 
ing all the storms of opposition, they all got over at length, 
some at one time and some at another, and some in one 
place and some in another, and met together again ac- 
cording to their desires, with no small rejoicing." 

A fresh reading in its details of the exodus of the Pil- 
grims from England to Holland only serves to deepen the 
surprise and indignation which was expressed in the open- 
ing words of this chapter. There are no words hot and 
sharp enough to express the folly and wickedness of ex- 
pelhng such a people from the land. But how subhme the 
faith, how superb the courage, how lofty and complete the 
devotion which would lead men and women to endure all 
these hardships and make all these sacrifices, and yet not 
flinch, but go straight on in testimony of their regard for 
conscience and their loyalty to God! So long as pain 
excites pity in the human breast, and tyranny arouses pro- 
test and resistance, and exhibitions of resolute courage and 
heroic self-sacrifice stir enthusiasm, what these men and 
women did in turning their backs on the homes of their 
childhood, and the land they cherished, and giving up so 
large a part of their possessions and escaping across the 
sea to a foreign country, will be found worthy of the con- 
stant and everlasting remembrance of a grateful and rev- 
erent posterity. Robinson has his memorial in the church 
at Gainsborough and the tablet at Leyden. Congrega- 
tionalists in Great Britain and America ought to unite in 
erecting a suitable monument to the exiles at Scrooby. 



VI 

EXPERIENCES AT AMSTERDAM 



The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave 
of liberty. It is a consolation to those who have hope in humanity to watch, 
under the reign of his successor, the gradual but triumphant resurrection 
of the spirit over which the sepulchre had so long been sealed. From the 
handbreadth of territory called the province of Holland rises a power which 
wages eighty years' warfare with the most potent empire upon earth, and 
which, during the progress of the struggle, becoming itself a mighty state — 
finally dictates its decrees to the Empire of Charles. 

John Lothrop Motlet. 

This small territory, invaded first by different tribes of Germanic races, 
subdued by the Romans and by the Franks, devastated by the Danes and the 
Normans, and wasted for centuries by terrible civil wars — preserved its 
civil freedom and liberty of conscience — against the formidable monarchy 
of Philip II and founded a repubhc which became the ark of salvation for 
the freedom of all peoples. — Edmondo De Amicis. 

Holland was the anvil upon which religious and civil liberty was beaten 
out in Europe at a time when the clang was scarcely heard anywhere else. 
We can never forget oiu" historical debt to that Country and to these people. 
Piu-itan, Independent, Huguenot, whoever he may be, forced to flee for con- 
science's sake, will not forget that in the Netherlands there was found in his 
time of need the asylum where conscience, property and person might be 
secure. — Thomas F. Bayard. 

The Dutch were the first to permit, and to acknowledge religious tolera- 
tion. — J. E. T. Rogers. 



VI 

EXPERIENCES AT AMSTERDAM 

HOLLAND was the only country to which the Pil- 
grims in their sore straits of persecution could flee. 
It was the only country near enough to be easily 
accessible; and it was the only country which was open to 
their approach. They were less than fifty miles from the 
coast, and when once on the shore nothing but the North 
Sea separated them from a people who had fought out the 
fight of freedom, and were living in the enjoyment of civil 
and rehgious hberty. Under the Dutch flag, as has been 
said before, one might think his own thoughts, utter his 
own opinions, or do this more freely than in any other of 
the leading nations, and worship God in any way, provided 
he kept within proper ethical limits, which met the demands 
of his own reason and moral sense. 

To men whose eff'orts to reform their lives and put con- 
science into' their conduct, and shape their characters ac- 
cording to the standards of the Master, exposed them to 
the scofi's and scorn of the " profane multitude," a people 
with such a spirit and a land with such laws must have 
made a strong appeal. Still stronger must have been the 
appeal when the attempts of these same men to get together 
for the study of the Word, and for mutual edification in 
worship rendered them obnoxious to enactments of Parlia- 
ment and liable to arrest and imprisonment by " apparators 
and pursuants and the commissarie courts." When the 
stress of necessity was upon them, it was only natural that 
this little company of ill-used and persecuted disciples of 
our Lord should seek the shelter of a state in which the 
emphasis of legislation was placed so largely on the civil 
and religious rights of the individual. Holland was at once 
a refuge for the oppressed and a school of instruction for 
those who would be experts in the practise of freedom. The 

7 



98 THE PILGRIMS 

victims of injustice and intolerance, whether in Cathohc 
France or Protestant England, found here the opportunity 
which they sought for unmolested worship. Descendants 
of the Pilgrims and citizens of our Republic may well hold 
the Dutch in most grateful remembrance. 



Why the exiles, driven from their native land, went 
to Holland has just been stated. But why 
Reasons for ^jj^j they choose to settle at Amsterdam 
going to jjj preference to any other town or city 
Amster- which they might have selected.'' There were 

*^^°^ several reasons for this choice, and all of these 

combined easily determined their action. 
Amsterdam, in all probability, was better known to the 
Pilgrims than any other city of Holland. It had been a 
city of growing importance for more than 
Amster- three hundred and fifty years. It was admitted 

dam well ^q membership in the United Provinces in 1578. 
known Soon after this it became the foremost com- 

mercial center of Europe. For upwards of a 
century it continued to hold this leading position. News 
traveled slowly in those days, and knowledge of what was 
going on in the world was limited; but Brewster and the 
others who were at the front in this band of exiles were 
well informed concerning the wonderful metropolis on the 
Amstcl. 

Amsterdam, at the time when the Scrooby Separatists 
were obliged to seek shelter in a foreign land from the fierce 
storm of persecution which had broken upon 
Amster- them in the home-land, was conspicuous for its 

dam was hospitality to men of all creeds and nationali- 
tolerant ^Jeg fpj^g toleration for which Holland stood 

was here exemplified in its most advanced 
stages. Commerce and trade had quickened the intelligence 
of the people, widened their interests and sympathies, and 
made them in all best senses more liberal. Intercourse with 
all sorts and conditions of men had given them a keener 
appreciation of soul-liberty as well as civil hberty. There 



THE PILGRIMS 99 

was an element of business shrewdness in it. Merchants 
and manufacturers had found it to their pecuniary advan- 
tage to let industrious, God-fearing workmen come within 
their borders. It was not all selfishness, however. The 
spirit of a wise catholicity and a broad statesmanship was 
behind the policy and dictated it. One of the long-honored 
officials of the city, so Dexter tells us, took the ground that 
" no magistrate has authority in matters of faith," and 
insisted that " the wisest course would be ' to disturb no 
man on account of his conscience.' " This was asserted to 
be an " ancient custom " of the city. Dear old Andrew 
Marvell, who thought this wide religious toleration a fine 
theme for satire, was paying a higher tribute than he knew 
when he wrote: 

' ' Hence Amsterdam, Turk-Christian-Pagan-Jew, 
Staple of sects, and mint of schism grew; 
That bank of conscience, where not one so strange 
Opinion but finds credit, and exchange." 

It is no wonder that the exiles sought the shelter of a com- 
munity so eminently hospitable to free thought. 

II 

Amsterdam, being a city of much wealth and of wide 
and increasing business activities, would be likely to fur- 
nish better chances for earning a living than 
Amster- ^ny other place to which they might go. They 
dam lield were fleeing to a foreign land, and were to 
out promise ^ast their lot among strangers. No one of the 
of a liveli- company was rich. The most of them were 
hood poor. All of them, no doubt, had made sacri- 

fices in the sale of their properties, while many 
of them must have been despoiled of no small portion of 
their earthly goods by the officials who were " harrying " 
them out of the kingdom. They could not aflford to lie idle, 
and they had no disposition to do so. To become objects 
of charity would have been an oflfcnse to their self-respect. 
They were without the capital and the necessary experience 
to enter into successful competition with those who were 
well established in business. Necessity was upon them to 



100 THE PILGRIMS 

do something. With their own hands they must secure 
shelter, food, and clothing. It was wise to pitch their tents 
where opportunities to meet their pressing needs were most 
abundant. This is what they did. No other place was so 
promising. 

m 

A further attraction of Amsterdam, we must believe, was 
the considerable number of English-speaking people who 

were already on the ground. The facts just 
More recited — the accessibility of the place, the 

English- wide reputation it enjoyed for hospitality to 
speaking ^11 faiths, and the exceptional facilities it 
people al- afforded for earning a livelihood — had been 
ready in controlling influences in determining the choice 
Amsterdam gf this city as the refuge to which persecuted 

Englishmen should escape. At an earlier 
period it had been Antwerp and other continental towns 
to which men, hunted and bioiised for the opinions they 
held, hastened for safety. In the more recent years it had 
been this wide-awake and tolerant Amsterdam. Not a few 
of the choice subjects of Elizabeth and James within the 
last decade and a half had crossed the German Ocean and 
found here the precious freedom for which they longed and 
prayed. 

The presence of these earlier comers who held the same 
views and cherished the same aims, who had passed through 
the same trying experiences and paid the same bitter cost 
for their liberty, and who spoke the same mother tongue, 
added to the considerations already named, would be an 
argument of much weight in the minds of the Scrooby exiles 
for settling down in this renowned mart of trade. In tak- 
ing up life in the midst of a people of " strange and uncouth 
language," and of different " manners and customs," and 
of " fashions and attires " to which they were not used, 
though " these were not the things they much looked on," 
it must have been a comforting thought that there were 
others beside the members of their own immediate party 
with whom they could hold famihar intercourse, and 










Tin: i.iTTi.i: sri{i:i:i' oi- ini: kuownists, ajisterdam 




IV A.MSTEUUA.M 



THE PILGRIMS 101 

through whom — some of them having been long enough 
in the country to learn its speech — they might talk to 
the native-born of the land and both understand and be 
understood. 

As has just been intimated, there was a pretty large con- 
tingent of Enghsh-speaking people, who had been driven 
from their homes for conscience' sake, at this time in Am- 
sterdam. The movement in this direction had been going 
on for a dozen years or more. In 1595 a section of Francis 
Johnson's church at Southwark had found its way from 
London to this city. It took two years to accomplish the 
journey, for the start was made in 1593. The members 
of this advance detachment were poor. They set out from 
prisons, though they had been locked up, not for their 
crimes, but for their faith and their way of expressing it. 
The doors of confinement were opened to them on condition 
that they would leave the realm. Their first attempt at 
settlement after crossing the North Sea was at Campen. 
From there they went to Naarden. In both towns the local 
magistrates had to render them pecuniary assistance. At 
length the pioneer contingent reached Amsterdam. In 
course of time the pastor, released from prison and ban- 
ished for hfe, joined those of his flock who had reached the 
city before him. 

IV 

After this manner a smitten and exiled company of 
believers was brought together in this foreign land. With 
Johnson still its pastor, and Ainsworth, who had been 
serving as pastor until Johnson arrived, chosen to be its 
teacher, it kept up its continuity for years and passed into 
history as the " Ancient Church." At length this Amster- 
dam church disappeared. But it is an interesting fact 
that the section of the original church in London which 
remained on the ground, though scattered and peeled, be- 
came the nucleus of a new church which persists unto this 
day. They were " the hidden ones who had maintained 
their fidelity to the cause through years of persecution." 
They were " what remained of that martyr church which, 



102 THE PILGRIMS 

after giving Greenwood, Barrowe, and Penry to the gal- 
lows, had been driven into exile." Henry Jacob — a man 
who had passed through many inward and outward con- 
flicts in coming to the conviction that he ought to be a 
Separatist — gathered this dispersed people and others 
along with them together and became their pastor. It is 
known to-day as the church of the " Pilgrim Fathers." 

Some time in 1606, or about a couple of years before the 
Scrooby exodus occurred, Jolin Smyth led the major part 
of the Gainsborough Separatists over to Amsterdam. 
These were well known to the more recent comers. They 
had been their near neighbors and associates in worship. 
It must have been good to meet them once more and talk 
over their common experiences and hopes. 



With so many things apparently in their favor and to 
their liking in the stirring and tolerant city to which they 
had migrated, why did the Pilgrims think it 
Why the wiser to leave Amsterdam and go to Ley den.'' 
Pilgrims With old friends about them, with fellow-suf- 
left Am- ferers for associates, with full liberty to wor- 
sterdam gj^p Qq^j g^g their own consciences, enlightened 

by the Scriptures and quickened by the Spirit, 
directed, and with ample chances for self-support, what 
more could they want.'' Were they getting restless.'' Were 
the excitements of a fresh removal necessary to their hap- 
piness.'' Far from it. These men were impelled by two 
good and sufficient motives to the step they took. 

The first was a desire to be secure in the enjoyment of 
peace. They had inward peace — the peace that passeth 
all understanding; but they wanted outward 
To be secure peace. It became evident that they could not 
in enjoy- have it where they were. Bradford has made 
ment of this clear in his statement of the reasons for 
peace their removal. " When they had lived at Am- 

sterdam about a year, Mr. Robinson, their 
pastor, and some others of the best discerning, seeing how 
Mr. John Smith and his company was already fallen into 



THE PILGRIMS 103 

contention with the church that was there before them, and 
no means thej could use would do any good to cure the 
same, and also that the flames of contention were like to 
break out in the ancient church itself (as afterwards 
lamentably came to pass) ; which things they prudently 
foreseeing, thought it was best to remove, before they were 
any way engaged with the same; though they well knew 
it would be much to the prejudice of their outward estate, 
both at present and in likelihood in the future — as in- 
deed it proved to be." 

As this quotation indicates, sharp differences of view 
and alienations had already cropped out in the group of 
Separatists which had gathered at Amsterdam. This is 
only what might have been expected. Moral reforms have 
a wonderful fascination, not only for careful, intelligent, 
and earnest well-wishers of their kind, but for a certain 
type of sincere but impulsive and unmanageable people. 
Every movement for bettering conditions in church and 
state and social life is sure to attract to itself more or less 
adherents who are best characterized by the designation 
" cranks." They are not fools. They are not knaves. 
They are honest, and athrob in every fiber of their being 
with good intentions, but their minds are not well ballasted. 
They have more enthusiasm than judgment. They easily 
degenerate into fanatics, and do more harm than good to 
the cause they espouse. They lack perspective and fail 
to distinguish between points of little consequence and points 
of all consequence. They become either quarrelsome or 
quixotic, and sometimes both. 

The Separatists of Scrooby were remarkable for their 
freedom from the plague of opinionated and eccentric char- 
acters. They were as strong in their purposes as fate, 
but they were sane and sensible. Incidental matters did not 
disturb their poise and divert them from their main end. 
The Separatists who preceded them to the Low Countries 
and settled in Amsterdam were not so fortunate. Their 
leaders were neither so clear-headed nor so well-balanced 
as Robinson and Brewster and the young but wise Brad- 
ford. Hence, small jealousies and open antagonisms and 



104 THE PILGRIMS 

the promise of anything but harmony. This is the pity 
of it; for some of these men had fine qualities and records 
to command admiration. 



VI 

Francis Johnson was a marked personaHty, and his 
story is one of thrilling interest. He was a Yorkshire 
man, bom at Richmond in 1562. He studied 
Francis ^t Cambridge and became a fellow of Christ's 

Johnson College. He entered the ministry, but soon 
came to hold advanced views on the subject 
of church government. Indeed, while a young man of only 
twenty-eight, he preached a sermon on this subject, which 
gave such offense to the ecclesiastical authorities that he 
was arrested and cast into prison. He promised to take 
back what he had said and was liberated. The retraction, 
when publicly made, was not satisfactory to the officials, 
and the offender was expelled from the university and re- 
turned to prison. A strong petition by influential friends 
at Cambridge secured his release. He crossed over to 
Middelberg and became the pastor of a Puritan church. 

But though zealous for Puritanism, he was still a Puri- 
tan and not a Separatist. So far was he from being a 
Separatist that he was ready to do all in his power to 
thwart the aims of those who felt it to be their duty to 
come out from the Established Church and stand by them- 
selves. A treatise written by Barrowe and Greenwood 
while imprisoned in the Fleet, in defense of their views and 
attitude, was being printed on the continent. The work, 
while in press, fell under the eye of Johnson. He took it 
for granted that the book was full of error, and secured 
the authority of the magistrates to commit the entire edi- 
tion to the flames. Two copies of the obnoxious pubhca- 
tion escaped. One of them he had the curiosity to read. 
He became convinced that the position taken by the authors 
was right. To make assurance doubly sure he went back 
to England, sought an interview with the authors while 
they were still in jail, took the side they advocated, joined 
the despised and ostracized fellowship in London of which 



THE PILGRIMS 105 

the two imprisoned writers were members, and was chosen 
pastor of the flock. It was in this way that he became a 
Separatist, and later, and after various experiences, an 
exile at Amsterdam. 

This brief outline of his career is enough to make it 
evident that Jolmson was a man of honest mind, quick 
impulses, brave heart, and deep convictions. He was obedi- 
ent to the heavenly vision. But he was impatient of re- 
straint, inclined to have his own way, and not wise enough 
to avoid humiliating and disastrous quarrels. He could 
not get on well with his brother George, and he allowed 
the style of his wife's dress to drift into discussion and 
become a divisive element in the church. Hardships, trials, 
imprisonments, banishment, the loss of earthly goods and 
the alienation of cherished friends wrought no changes in 
his ideas and purposes. At the same time he was sure to 
be a storm-center in all current controversies and a dis- 
turber of the equanimity of his friends as well as his foes. 
He had the insight and courage of a reformer, but not 
the skill and patience to be a successful leader. 

Besides, the proper form of government for a church 
interested Johnson at Amsterdam as it had at Cambridge, 
and his notions on the subject were of a kind and so pro- 
nounced that he and Robinson would hardly have been able 
to see eye to eye. He claimed independence for the local 
church, but he thought the local church ought to be under 
the control of a body of elders. He rejected the Congre- 
gational theory of Browne and adopted the Presbyterian 
theory of Barrowe, his teacher in Separatism. Thus all 
the tendencies of his mind were in a direction which diverged 
more and more from the path along which the Scrooby 
exiles were moving. Take it all in all, a discerning eye 
could discover a large stock of material for future con- 
troversy in the habit and temper of this one man. 



106 THE PILGRIMS 



VII 

John Smyth is supposed to have been a native of Gains- 
borough, but neither the place in which he was born, nor 

the date of his birth, is definitely known. He 
John y^as graduated at Cambridge and became a 

Smyth fellow of Christ's College. He had many fine 

qualities. Bradford declares that he " was an 
eminent man in his time, and a good preacher, and of other 
good parts." But the same kindly author felt obliged to 
add: " His inconsistency and unstable judgment, and being 
so suddenly carried away with things, did soon overthrow 
him." Robinson, in his " Dissuasions Against Separatism 
Considered " devotes two lines to him ; but these two lines 
have in them not so much the benumbing effect of a blow 
as the sharp thrust of the sting of a bee. " His instability 
and wantonness of wit is his sin and our cross." It is not 
easy to characterize such a man and keep steadily in mind 
his commendable traits and real services. He had a fertile 
brain, a conscience quickly responsive to what he conceived 
to be truth and duty, and pluck to match. Nothing daunted 
him. But while he saw some things clearly he had only 
confused and distorted notions of some other things. He 
was unselfish. His sincerity was never called in question. 
His career, however, was tortuous. He was one of those 
minds which seem to be more attracted by a plausible con- 
jecture than by a solid argument. He led his followers 
out of bondage to a corrupt church and a cruel govern- 
ment ; but he did not stop there. He kept leading them 
until he had them all in the bogs and quicksands of un- 
reasonable conceits. His scholarly attainments were con- 
siderable. He became an author early in life. His writ- 
ings show both capacity and earnestness, but the tendency 
of fanaticism was strong in his nature, and it appears to 
have been easy for him to wander off into all sorts of 
strange vagaries. Consistency was no jewel in his esti- 
mation. Dexter says of him that he " was unusually hos- 
pitable to plausible new views of religion, and had an almost 
chivalric wilHngness to adopt them, wherever they might 



THE PILGRIMS 107 

lead, which amounted to httle less than recklessness. In 
England he had vacillated so that Ainsworth said he had 
published ' three sundry books wherein he hath shewed 
himself of three several religions ; and in another book 
had so contradicted himself that there was little need of 
another man's sword to pierce the bowels of his error, when 
his own hand fighteth against himself.' " 

First and last, Smyth fathered many a strange notion. 
Some of his conceits were worthy of the genius of insanity. 
He began his caprices by charging that it was a sin to use 
the English Bible in worship. Nothing but the original 
Hebrew and Greek would satisfy him. From this he ad- 
vanced to the opinion that it was improper and wrong to 
have the Scriptures open before the eye while preaching, 
or the psalm while singing. The open book, so he con- 
tended, destroyed the spirituality of the worship. To be 
acceptable everything must be from the heart and by heart. 
This position was assumed and this controversy was sprung 
upon the Separatist churches only a short time before the 
arrival of the Scrooby people in Amsterdam. 

A greater surprise was in store. Sliortly after the com- 
ing of the Pilgrims to the city Smyth changed his views 
on baptism. He also concluded that the Church had been 
so out of the way in the past and was so corrupt that it 
was not worthy to administer the rite. Hence his church 
was dissolved and a new start was made. Smyth baptized 
himself — became a Se-Baptist. From a basin he " dipped 
up water in his hand and poured it over his own forehead 
in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost." After 
this ceremony he baptized the others who were of his way 
of thinking and ready to follow him. Then he had a church 
to suit him, for he had made it himself. Alas, no ! for his 
next discovery was that he and his associates had been rash 
in their action, since there could be no valid " administra- 
tion of baptism and other ordinances " until the church was 
duly officered. So things went at rapid pace from bad to 
worse until in no long time, as might have been foreseen, 
Smyth's church came to an end and his impracticable and 
foolish schemes melted into thin air. He died a couple of 
years or so afterwards, and found his grave in the city 



108 THE PILGRIMS 

of his adoption. Unfortunately he is not the only man in 
history of pronounced ability and irreproachable character 
over whom we are obhged to mourn because his career was 
wrecked through lack of common sense. 



VIII 

Henry Ainsworth, a third man who was prominent in the 
circle of Separatists who preceded the Pilgrims in going 

to Amsterdam, was a choice soul. Until re- 
Henry cently his birthplace, his age, the institution, 
Ainsworth [f any, at which he studied, were all matters 

of conjecture. More thorough investigations 
have brought to light the fact that he was bom in Swanton- 
Morley, in Norfolk, in 1569. He studied for a year at 
St. John's, Cambridge. At the end of this period he left 
St. John's and entered Gonville and Caius. He was then 
eighteen years of age. He did not graduate, but the proba- 
bilities are that he spent not less than three years at this 
college. It is not true, therefore, as has been generally 
supposed, that he had only limited educational advantages. 
On the contrary, he was well educated in the schools. This 
is shown in the eminence he won as a Hebrew scholar and 
expositor of the Hebrew Scriptures. His notes on the 
Pentateuch gave him a place in the front rank of commen- 
tators on these books of the Old Testament, The latest 
Revisers found his " Annotations " " a valuable help in 
their work." Very high praise has been bestowed on his 
translation of the Psalms. He prepared a copy of the 
Psalms for singing. As seen in his *' Counterpoyson," his 
controversial writings were clear and strong. Johnson, 
Smyth, and others among the Amsterdam exiles, were 
scholars, but when it seemed advisable to turn their Con- 
fession of Faith into Latin, Ainsworth was the one chosen 
for the task. 

Independent of his training, or rather as the basis of his 
training, Ainsworth was a man of exceptional abiUties. 
He had a penetrating insight and clear apprehension. His 
reading along theological hues and church history was 



THE PILGRIMS 109 

wide, and his knowledge was varied and accurate. More- 
over, he was a man with a will brought into conformity to 
the divine will, and a mind illuminated by the mind of the 
Master, and a disposition, naturally sweet, softened and 
sanctified by the indwelhng of the Spirit. He was as true 
as steel, but he was loving and lovable. His belief that 
they were right in their contention, and his sympathy with 
them in their trials and imprisonment and poverty, led him 
to identify his name and fortune with the section of the 
Southwark flock which migrated to Holland. Still, amidst 
all the confusion and wrangling which went on in the 
churches of Jolmson and Smyth, he seems never to have lost 
his head, nor to have fallen from the grace of good temper. 
His very excellences, however, drew him into the strife 
and made him the leader of a party. He had the sanity 
which attracted men of sanity to his side, and in a storm, 
the few who were not panic-stricken felt safer with the 
helm in his hands. As we have seen, Ainsworth was the 
pastor of the Ancient Church during the first years of its 
location in this foreign city. When Johnson arrived he 
dropped back into the place of teacher. But when the 
split came he was put at the head of the disaffected party. 
Still, though he was positive in his opinions and true to 
them in all emergencies, he carried himself serenely through 
the heats of these sharp controversies and retained his 
sound judgment and his unsullied character unto the end. 
He had the confidence and love of the Scrooby Pilgrims from 
first to last, and he lived on and bore his testimony until 
two years after they had reached the shores of America. 

Richard Clyfton was drawn into some of these contro- 
versies, but though he remained behind when Robinson 
and his associates went to Ley den, he appears 
Bichard neither to have said nor to have done anything 

Clyfton Iq forfeit the high esteem in which he was held 

by those who knew him best. Had all been of 
the good sense and good temper of Ainsworth and Clyfton 
there would have been no trouble. 

Events, however, were ordered otherwise. Human folly 
as well as human wisdom was to play a part in the progress 



110 THE PILGRIMS 

of mankind. Once more the wrath of man was to be made 
to praise the Lord and to promote the interests of his 
kingdom. Separatists — men who stood out and made all 
kinds of sacrifices in protest against the evils and corrup- 
tions of the Church, and who insisted on the right and 
power of self-government for the people of God — were 
to make a spectacle of themselves before the world by 
their ideas and their scandalous wranglings. It was no 
place for our Scroobj exiles. If they wanted peace they 
must gird up their loins and journey on again. 



IX 

A second motive which influenced the Pilgrims in their 
purpose to leave Amsterdam and go to Leyden was the 

strong desire they felt to keep together and 
Strong de- maintain the separate identity and unity of 
sire to keep their little company, 
together j^ ^j^g (Jesire we discover two factors, one 

conscious and the other unconscious. They had 
their own thought, clear and definite, in the matter; and 
this thought they held to with a striking tenacity. But 
over and above this, so we find it well-nigh impossible not 
to believe, they were in the hands of a Providence which was 
shaping their ends, giving form to their plans, and in a way 
quite above their immediate discerning was opening paths 
along which it would seem wise for them to walk. It has been 
said by another that " when they took a step they took it 
with a view to every step that would follow, and they fixed 
their eyes not on any diversion by the wayside, but on their 
ultimate destination." This is true. It is true, however, 
not because these men in the light of their own understand- 
ing saw the end from the beginning, but because the divine 
Forecaster saw it, and directed affairs after such fashion 
that the choice made by them of a course to pursue in each 
crisis of their common life should have wise reference to 
their final triumph. They were warp and woof in God's 
loom. Unseen hands had shaped the pattern and were 
throwing the shuttles. The finished web was to be what 



THE PILGRIMS 111 

the world would admire through all the generations. But 
it took the two factors of a human purpose and a divine 
guidance working together to bring it about. 

Having said so much, it hardly needs to be added that 
the Scrooby exiles did not unite with either of the two 

churches which were on the ground before them, 
Maintained j^q^^ adhered to their own organization and kept 
their own ft intact. They united with the Ancient 
organiza- Church in worship, and appear to have 
*^°^ been edified by the services, but they did not 

disband and join them. As might have been 
expected, Johnson's followers contained some unworthy 
members. Still, Bradford bears testimony to the fact that 
among them there were " many worthy men," and that in 
the best days of the church they displayed a " beauty and 
order" which were admirable. The same thing was true 
of Smyth's church. There were in it not a few " honest 
and godly men." There can be no doubt that a large 
majority of the members in both churches were of this sort 
— " honest and godly." Had they been wisely led the 
story of their careers would have been a widely different 
one. Such, however, was not the case. Both flocks were 
badly shepherded. In view of the disturbances which had 
already taken place, and of others hkely to occur in the 
near future, and especially in view of the subtle something 
in their own souls which controlled and guided them at every 
critical juncture in their lives and kept them true to their 
sublime destiny, they stood aloof from the other organiza- 
tions and preserved their own identity. 

On these two grounds, therefore — the peace of their 
own members and the unbroken continuity of their fellow- 
ship — the Scrooby exiles decided to remove from Am- 
sterdam to Leyden. 



112 THE PILGRIMS 



These Pilgrims, however, wise and considerate beyond 
the men of their day, were not wIlHng to Intrude themselves 

upon a community which was not wilhng to 
Petition for receive them. When it had been settled by 
leave to them that it was better to leave Amsterdam 
settle at ^nd go elsewhere, and when Leyden had been 
Leyden fixed upon as the most eligible place to which 

they could move, they drew up an application 
and sent It to the authorities of the city In which they made 
known their desire to become residents of the town, and 
respectfully asked If they might do so, and if, in doing so, 
they might " have the freedom thereof in carrying on their 
trades." The answer of these sturdy Dutch burgomasters 
was what might have been anticipated. They declared it 
to be their policy to " refuse no honest persons free ingress 
to come and have their residence " In their city ; but they 
added a clause which bristled with significance, and which 
it would be well if all cities could Incorporate in their im- 
migration laws, " provided that such persons behave them- 
selves, and submit to the laws and ordinances." However, 
the applicants had their request granted, and In most 
gracious language : " The coming of the memorialists will 
be agreeable and welcome." This kindly permission must 
have put heart Into the Pilgrims and confirmed them in 
their purpose and the wisdom of It. They soon left, a 
hundred strong, " or thereabouts," prophetic of the hun- 
dred strong " or thereabouts," who at a later date were 
to cross the Atlantic In the Mayflower, and, turning 
their backs on the city which had been to them a city of 
refuge in their dire distress, and of whose hospltahty they 
were never unmindful, they set their faces towards the other 
city, which had become a renowned center of liberty and 
learning, and within whose walls they were to receive the 
training necessary to fit them to become the founders of 
a free church and a new state in a recently discovered 
world. 



VII 

THE PILGRIMS AT LEYDEN 



Leyden was at last relieved by William of Orange, who from his sick 
bed had arranged for the piercing of the dykes and letting in enough water 
to swim his ships and rout the Spaniards. Out of tribulation comes good. 
For this constancy and endurance in the siege the Prince offered the people 
of Leyden one of two benefits — exemption from taxes or the establishment 
of a imiversity. They took the university. — E. V. Lucas. 

Here, then, in the beautiful city of Leyden, with its famous university 
and its heroic past, the wanderers, in 1609, found a home. They were few 
in number, and mostly of obscure origin, so that their story in the land of 
their adoption would have no historic importance except for the influence 
exerted on the world by their descendants in America. In view of this 
influence, however, every detail of their prior life becomes of interest. 

Douglas Campbell. 

That Leyden afforded not merely hospitality and freedom, but the best 
school in the world for the training of men in the principles of Uberty, and 
in endurance for the sake of Uberty, is beyond question. 

Alexander McK-Enzie. 

Probably the Pilgrims cared little about conspicuous prosperity or social 
eminence in Holland. Could they have secured moderate material comfort 
and an assured opportunity of desirable moral and spiritual development 
they could have been content in Leyden. 

Morton Dexter. 



VII 

THE PILGRLVIS AT LEYDEN 

IT is with a sense of satisfaction that we contemplate the 
Pilgrims at Leyden. They have reached a place of 
safety. They can live in peace. They can get their 
bearings. With time and opportunity for sober reflec- 
tion, for comparison of views, and for looking at the ques- 
tion in all its aspects, they can find out whether the steps 
taken by them seem to have been wise, and whether it is 
better to hold fast to their purpose and go straight for- 
ward, or to change front and beat a retreat. 



Leyden is a city of remarkable interest. Bradford calls 
it " fair and beautiful, and of a sweet situation." Motley, 

it will be remembered, describes the place in 
Leyden terms of enthusiastic admiration. One of the 

French chroniclers says : " The city of Leyden 
is, without contradiction, one of the grandest, the comliest, 
and the most charming cities in the world." An Italian 
writer of eminence, within the last quarter of a century, 
speaks of it as " the ancient Athens of the North, the 
Saragossa of the Low Countries, the oldest and most 
glorious daughter of Holland." One who has walked its 
streets, strolled along its canals, and wandered at leisure 
through its public parks, sat under the shade of its lindens, 
observed the extreme neatness which everywhere prevails, 
and passed through the halls of its renowned institutions, 
can join heartily in these words of praise. At the time 
of the Pilgrims it had a population of about forty-five 
thousand. 



116 THE PILGRIMS 

The city is located in South Holland, on the Old Rhine, 
a little more than six miles from the North Sea. It is in 

the midst of towns justly renowned for their 
Location historic events and associations. Less than 

thirty miles, directly east, is Utrecht. Some- 
thing over twenty, a few points to the east of north, is 
Amsterdam. Going a bit west of south for a half-dozen 
miles or so one reaches The Hague ; while only a Httle fur- 
ther away, and more nearly south, is Delft. Not quite 
so far away as either Utrecht or Amsterdam is Rotterdam, 
the birthplace of Erasmus. About as far north from 
Leyden, as Rotterdam is south, is Haarlem — a city which 
lends the attractiveness of a great past to the circle of dis- 
tinguished communities in which it is located. It would not 
be easy to match the region in the center of which the Pil- 
grims made their temporary home for heroic achievements. 
In the days when the story of the Pilgrims was unfold- 
ing, these cities were the centers of trade and commerce, 

the seats of vast and important industries, and 
Centers of ^j^g homes of art and learning. They were the 
interest and spheres of subtle diplomacy and far-seeing and 
influence courageous statesmanship, and their battered 

walls bore witness to mighty sieges and battles, 
to awful onsets and heroic defenses. The influences which 
the people of these Dutch towns contributed to the progress 
of civilization were not only potent, but enduring. They are 
felt to-day wherever industry and thrift are at a premium, 
and scholarship and esthetic skill are held in honor, and 
civil liberty and religious freedom are cherished. Travelers 
who would set foot on spots of permanent and fruitful his- 
toric interest cannot afford to omit Leyden and the cities 
which cluster about it from their European itineraries. 

Leyden gets its name, so Dr. Griffis tells us, " from the 
old Celtic word ' Lugdun,' which means the looking place, 

or outlook, referring to the great mound as 
Origin of being placed anciently at the junction of the 
name ^^q branches of the Rhine to command both 

waterways." In the Middle Ages it was called 
Leithen. Whether Leyden is really identical with the old 
Lugdunum Batavorum has been called in question. But 



THE PILGRIMS 117 

this is a matter of small consequence. Without doubt, 
Batavians, whose spirit of independence and indomitable 
pluck stirred such enthusiasm in the mind of Motley, and 
whose prowess the embattled legions of the Eternal City 
found it so hard to match, once dwelt there. These self- 
respecting and sturdy tribes, then the Romans, and after 
these the representatives of the German race were the his- 
toric peoples who, in succession, occupied the site of this 
old and intensely interesting town. The original attrac- 
tion of the place, whoever may have settled there first, was 
very clearly its strategic situation. By the erection of this 
" burg," which served the double purpose of a point of 
observation and a strong defense, the citizens of the place 
were enabled to detect from afar the approach of an enemy, 
and thus to make a timely and effective stand against 
invasion. 

II 

Early in the history of Holland members of the ruling 
and aristocratic classes made Leyden their place of resi- 
dence. This brought wealth to the town and 
History of gave it social and political standing. Manu- 
the town facturing interests were fostered. The skill of 
its artisans was celebrated far and wide. Its 
textile products — more especially its woolens — were in 
high repute throughout Europe, and commanded the best 
prices in the market. The upper classes were not only rich, 
but they were characterized by genuine liberality and an 
intelligent public spirit. Democracy had not come to its 
full fruitage — far from it ; but there was a sense of obli- 
gation to the community and a disposition to aid wliich 
were highly conrmiendable. Dr. Griffis says once more: 
" Already, in the Middle Ages, the city was noted for 
its splendid churches, for its hospitals, its orphan asy- 
lums, and its schools, where the poor received instruc- 
tion free of charge, the schools being supported by public 
taxation." 

The famous St. Peter's Church, the largest church in the 
city, alike the tomb and the monument of many illustrious 



118 THE PILGRIMS 

dead, and made still more attractive, if not more famous, 
in the estimation of Congregationalists throughout the 
world by bearing on its walls a memorial to 
St. Peter's John Robinson, was built and dedicated as 
Chiirch early as 1121. Inasmuch as the edifice was re- 

built and greatly enlarged two centuries later, 
there is confusion about the true date of its construction, 
and the time is set by some, as above, at 1121, and by 
others at 1315. One of the features of the building in the 
early centuries of its existence was its lofty and imposing 
West Tower, but this fell in 1512. 

One has only to go into the museum of the town, and 
make a little study of the relics and trophies there gathered, 
to understand how severe have been the strug- 
Relics and gjgg g^jj^j ^low splendid have been the triumphs 
trophies through which the old city has passed in the 

many centuries since it was founded. 
There was something, too, in the intellectual and social 
atmosphere of the community which not only bred self-re- 
spect and thrift and a high type of courage, 
■^^* but was especially favorable to the development 

of the art instinct. Leyden has been fitly called 
the " teeming mother of painters." A renowned group of 
masters of the brush appeared on the scene about the time 
of the occupancy of the city by the Pilgrims. Rembrandt 
was a child three years old when these wanderers for prin- 
ciple's sake entered the town. Gerard Douw, a famous 
pupil of the most famous master of the brush which Holland 
ever produced, was a boy of only seven summers when 
Brewster and Bradford and their associates left the shelter 
of the Dutcliland for the shores of America. Jan Steen 
was born the year after Robinson died. Other distinguished 
artists were natives of Leyden, but these three, particularly 
when the surpassing excellence and world-wide renown of the 
first of the three is taken into consideration, are enough to 
confer imperishable honor on any city. 



THE PILGRIMS 119 



in 



But the special pride of Leyden at the time the Pilgrims 
were there, and its glory ever since, was its magnificent 
university. For a twofold reason it might 
The uni- ^gjj j^g^ This university was much in itself, and 
versity j^ \^g^^ i^g^j, given to the city, on recommenda- 

tion of William the Silent, in recognition of the 
utter self-denial and superb heroism the citizens had shown in 
resisting the siege of the Spaniards in 1573-74, and starv- 
ing and dying by hundreds rather than open the gates and 
surrender to the enemy. This took place only a little more 
than thirty years before the English exiles made the city 
their temporary home; and the story of it must still have 
been a burning theme on many a lip. The walls of this 
school of learning would be a perpetual reminder both to 
native inhabitants and strangers of the awful experiences 
through which the people of the city had only recently 
passed, and of the magnificent appreciation exhibited by 
their great and martyred leader of these services and sacri- 
fices. Further on there will be occasion to say more concern- 
ing this institution. Only here and now, and once for all, it 
may be said that the University of Leyden was at the front 
alike for the learning of its teachers and the number and 
character of the students who thronged its halls. There was 
a time when neither Oxford nor Cambridge was in such high 
repute. The names of Scaliger, Arminius, and Grotius 
would make any school famous. Andrew D. White, in his 
autobiography, in speaking of Grotius says : " More than 
ever it is clear to me that of all books ever written — not 
claiming divine inspiration — the great work of Grotius 
on ' War and Peace ' has been of most benefit to mankind." 
Our own John Quincy Adams was once a student in this 
institution. 

IV 

On reaching Leyden, the first thing for the exiles to do 
was to find houses to shelter them. Fortunately, as we have 
seen, the application made by Robinson and his associates 



120 THE PILGRIMS 

for permission to become residents of Leyden was favorably 
received, so that the little party — about a hundred of them 
in all — was able to enter the town, not only 
Finding fpgg from suspicion and prejudice, but with the 

homes in f^\\ approval of the authorities. This good 
Leyden opinion of them which was entertained by the 

Leyden officials, when they were permitted to 
come and dwell among them, was never changed. 

The probabihties are that the first home of the Pilgrims 
in Leyden was on St. Ursula Street, in a section which had 
recently been annexed to the city. This new section lay to 
the northwest of the old portion of the town, and, Kke addi- 
tions to our thrifty and growing American cities, it no 
doubt afforded better promise to newcomers with small 
means, and especially to a group of newcomers who wished 
to keep close together, of finding roofs to cover their heads, 
than the older and more thickly settled quarters. 

By the end of a twelvemonth, however, these Pilgrims 
had pulled themselves together, and gotten the situation well 
in hand. A rare property, in a choice location, was put 
upon the market and they bought it. This purchase was 
on Kloksteeg, or Bell Alley. The property consisted of a 
house and garden, only a few steps across the lane from 
St. Peter's Church, and close to the university and the 
City Hall. Their new location, therefore, put them at 
the center of things, and they had a fair chance to work 
out their destiny. For this estate, secured through the 
agency of Robinson and three associates, the Pilgrims gave 
eight thousand guilders. Two thousand guilders were 
paid down, and the balance of the obligation was secured 
by mortgage, and met by the payment of five hundred 
guilders annually. Who among these people had ready 
cash, or how all of them combined, even by poohng their 
assets, could get this sum of money together, is not quite 
clear; but this is what they did. The house purchased 
appears to have been quite large ; and it became the resi- 
dence of Robinson and the meeting-place of the little flock 
of which Robinson was the shepherd. Smaller dwellings 
to the number of twenty-one were soon erected on the vacant 
part of the lot they had bought, and in a little while the 



THE PILGRIMS 121 

Pilgrims were clustered about a common court in a compact 
and homogeneous colony. This is the place that was made 
historic by the residence of the Pilgrims in Leyden. As 
long as there are lovers of liberty and of the Congrega- 
tional Way in the world — this spot will be a shrine to be 
visited with grateful and sacred awe. 



Very naturally, on their arrival at Leyden, the means 
by which they should obtain a livelihood became a question, 
and a very pressing one, with the Pilgrims. 
Settling Though not utterly without resources, as we 

down to have just seen, they were yet in straitened cir- 
work cumstances, and must needs secure their subsis- 

tence by toil of some sort. What could they do 
and what was open to them? They were not professional 
men. They were not trained scholars. They were not 
skilled artisans. Of those who came from Scrooby to 
Leyden no one, except William Brewster, would appear to 
have had much business experience. They were a rural 
people, familiar, all of them no doubt, with ordinary agricul- 
tural pursuits, and some of them, too, with such small trades 
• — carpentering and smithing, for instance — as would 
naturally grow up in a country community. But to what 
pecuniary advantage could this knowledge be turned in a 
city.'* There was nothing for them but to fall in with the 
ways of the people, and learn to do what they were doing, 
and turn their hands to whatever remunerative employment 
circumstances might offer. 

Speaking in general of the difficulties which confronted 
them when they first " came into the Low Countries," 
Bradford says that " they saw many goodly 
Difficulties ^nd fortified cities," and " heard a strange and 
in the uncouth language," and beheld " manners and 

"^^"y customs " so different from those they had been 

used to in " their plain country villages " that 
it seemed as if they had " come into a new world." " But," 
he adds, " these were not the things they much looked on ; " 
— " for they had other work in hand, and another kind of 



122 THE PILGRIMS 

war to wage and maintain. For they saw fair and beautiful 
cities, flowing with abundance of all sorts of wealth and 
riches, yet it was not long before they saw the grim and 
grisly face of poverty coming after them like an armed man, 
with whom they must buckle and encounter, and from whom 
they could not fly ; but they were armed with faith and 
patience against him, and all his encounters ; and though 
they were sometimes foiled, yet by God's assistance they 
prevailed and got the victory." Speaking more particularly 
of the material outlook at Leyden when the Pilgrims reached 
that city, the same author says : " Wanting that traffic by 
sea which Amsterdam enjoys, it was not so beneficial for 
their outward means of living and estate. But being now 
here pitched, they fell to such trades and employments as 
they best could; valuing peace and their spiritual comfort 
above any other riches whatsoever. And at length they came 
to raise a competent and comfortable living, but with hard 
and continual labor." While it is true that Leyden was 
wanting in the " traffic by sea " which Amsterdam enjoyed, 
it is to be borne in mind that Leyden was a hive of industry, 
and in the multiplied forms of manufacturing which it car- 
ried on it opened many doors to men who were more than 
willing to earn an honest living by honest toil. 



VI 

As a matter of course, therefore, these men with a con- 
science, and with the self-respect and high purpose sure 

to be associated with a well-trained and vigor- 
Vocations (jyg nioral sense, went to work at such simple, 
chosen every-day tasks as others in like stress of need 

were engaged in, and as were offered them by 
the employers of manual labor. In the sweat of their faces 
they earned and ate their daily bread. Some became car- 
penters ; others took up the trade of weavers ; others still 
learned to lay bricks, or to spin twine, or to make furniture, 
or glass, or candles, or clocks, or pumps. For some there 
were openings in other directions, and they became bakers, 
brewers, coopers, or tailors. Bassett carried a hod ; Cush- 



THE PILGRIMS 123 

man and Masterson carded wool ; Jessop and Collins made 
bombazine, or a twilled fabric of silk and worsted; Cuth- 
bertson and Lee made hats ; Bradford, Fuller, Southworth, 
and Wilson manufactured fustian, or a twilled cloth whose 
constituents were cotton and hnen ; Morton, Butler, Jen- 
nings, and Pickering turned to merchandizing; Brewster 
taught Enghsh at first, and later ran a printing-press. 
Others who came in and joined the colony at subsequent 
periods distributed themselves through these and like depart- 
ments of industry. Judged by the standards of the world 
these exiles were a lowly people, and they were content to 
earn their living in humble occupations ; but it is to be said 
to their everlasting credit that they did with their might 
what their hands found to do, and, what is still more to their 
credit, they did honest work, and conducted themselves after 
a fashion to meet the hearty approval of the community 
among whom they dwelt. 

On the removal of the Pilgrims from Leyden, slanders 
were set afoot by their adversaries to the effect that the 
State had grown weary of them and driven 
Warmly them out. Bradford, in a spirit of calm and 
com- pardonable triumph, mentions two or three 

mended facts to show the groundlessness of these re- 

ports. " First, though many of them were 
poor, yet there was none so poor, but if they were known 
to be of the congregation, the Dutch, either bakers or others, 
would trust them in any reasonable matter when they wanted 
money. Because they had found by experience how careful 
they were to keep to their word, and saw them so painful and 
diligent in their calhngs ; yea, they would strive to get their 
custom, and to employ them above others in their work, for 
their honesty and diligence." To this somewhat conclusive 
evidence of the respect in which the Pilgrims were held in 
Leyden the same author adds : " Again, the magistrates 
of the city, about the time of their coming away, or a little 
before, in the pubhc place of justice, gave this commend- 
able testimony of them, in the reproof of the Walloons who 
were of the French Church in the city. ' These English,' 
said they, * have lived amongst us now this twelve years, 
and yet we never had any suit or accusation against any of 



124 THE PILGRIMS 

them ; but your strifes and quarrels are continual.' " As if 
to settle the question beyond controversy, Bradford cites 
the further fact of the marked esteem in which Robinson, 
the head of their colony, was held by the professors in the 
university, and the responsibihties to which he was advanced 
by the Calvinistic wing of them in connection with the great 
controversy of the time. But this will come into review a 
little further on ; yet it called for notice here because of the 
slander it was brought forward to refute. History fur- 
nishes no counter-note to the claim that the Pilgrims, while 
in Leyden, showed themselves to be an eminently honest, in- 
dustrious, thrifty, law-abiding, and God-fearing people. 



VII 

The additions to the numbers of the exiles from the out- 
side during the years of their Leyden life were not so many 
as might have been expected. The persecuting 
^®""'" spirit still remained active under James in Eng- 

comers land, and loyalty to conscience was still a char- 

acteristic of a large and intelligent section of 
the English people. But not many were disposed to cast in 
their lot with this band of Separatists at Leyden. Bradford 
says : " Many came to them from divers parts of England, 
so as they grew a great congregation." But he was speak- 
ing in comparative terms. Men of importance to the colony 
came to them ; and the one hundred more or less who first 
entered Leyden grew to be three hundred, or thereabouts. 
Under the circumstances this seemed to the good governor 
a remarkable increase; but the increase was large only 
relatively — not actually. 

However, there were accessions to the colony from the out- 
side, and quite a number came to them whose coming was of 
great advantage. Of these John Carver, Edward Winslow, 
Thomas Brewer, Robert Cushman, Isaac Allerton, Samuel 
Fuller, and Miles Standish deserve special mention. 

John Carver appears to have been a man of well-balanced 
mind, of marked practical sagacity, of deep and earnest 



THE PILGRIMS 125 

convictions, and of solid character. He was wise, consid- 
erate, kind, and he possessed in no small measure those 

elements of manhood which inspire and justify 
Carver confidence. In addition to these personal quah- 

ties which fitted him so pecuHarly for the service 
he was to render, he was evidently a person of some means, 
and was sufficiently familiar with business and business 
methods to command the respect of men of affairs. From 
what county in England he came to Leyden is not known. 
Nor is there any record of the time of his joining the exiles. 
But he was in the city and a member of the colony as early 
as 1617, for both himself and his wife are entered in the 
register of marriages as witnesses to a marriage ceremony 
within this year. He was made a deacon in the church. 
When the time came for entering seriously on negotiations 
for the transfer of the colony to the New World he was one 
of the agents to whom the difficult and dehcate business was 
entrusted. The fact that Robinson addressed him in terms 
of confidence and love in a personal letter, and also made 
him the organ through which he communicated his words of 
tender counsel to the whole body of the Pilgrims on their 
migration, and that he was selected to be the first governor 
of this historic company, shows how commanding was his 
personaHty, how judicious and dignified his bearing, and in 
what high esteem he was held by all his associates. These 
Pilgrims were but a little band, and they make but a beg- 
garly showing compared with the hosts of voters who now 
assemble at the appointed places on election day to determine 
who shall be the chief executive officer of any one of our 
leading commonwealths ; but it was no small thing to be the 
man first named by these founders of a democracy to pre- 
side over the destinies of the new state they were building. 
No statue of him may be chosen to adorn our modem 
temples of fame; representatives of more conspicuous 
abilities and service may crowd him out; but he occupies 
a niche in history from which he can never be dislodged. 

Concerning Winslow Dr. Brown makes this interesting 
statement: " Edward Winslow, an able and educated young 
English gentleman from Droitwich, being on his travels, 



126 THE PILGRIMS 

happened to come to Leyden in 1617, and was so struck 
with the Christian hfe of the brotherhood that he cast in his 

lot with them, and not only became a member of 
"Winslow iiiQ fellowship, but went with them afterwards to 

New England, his name standing third among 
those who signed the compact on board the Mayflower." 
Carver, Bradford, Winslow, Brewster, is the order in which 
the names of the leaders appear on that great and ever-mem- 
orable document. Winslow took up the trade of printer, 
and by this kind of work maintained himself at Leyden. 
He became a writer as well, and the productions of his pen, 
like those of Bradford's, are an invaluable source of first- 
hand information touching the history of the Pilgrims. 
Students of these early days would deem it a great loss were 
they deprived of the help to an understanding of the state 
of affairs found in his " Good News from New England," 
" Hypocricy Unmasked," and other contributions made by 
him to the history of the times. In 1633, 1636, and again 
in 1644, Winslow was chosen governor of the Plymouth 
Colony. In the interest of the colony he was often sent to 
England. Cromwell had a high opinion of his merits, and 
appointed him on commissions which called for the exercise 
of great good sense and judicial fairness. He once had the 
honor of an imprisonment for several months in London at 
the instigation of Archbishop Laud for having presumed, 
while only a layman, to teach in the church, and in virtue 
of his office as a mere magistrate to perform marriage cere- 
monies. Dr. Morton Dexter says of Winslow : " He ap- 
pears to have been the only member of the Pilgrim Company 
who gained an eminence recognized at the time in England 
as conspicuous." 

Thomas Brewer was a man of property — a landowner 
in Kent — with the distinction in society which belonged 

to an owner of land in England in those days. 
Brewer jjg never came to America, but he played an 

important part in the life of the Pilgrims in 
Holland. He was one of the three members of the Separa- 
tist Church at Leyden who entered as students in the uni- 
versity. Speaking of Brewster, and of what he did in 



THE PILGRIMS 127 

Leyden, Bradford says : " He also had means to set up 
printing, by the help of some friends." Thomas Brewer 
was the " friend " who put capital into the business, and 
enabled the good elder to publish, on a somewhat surprising 
scale, ecclesiastical treatises which were in accord with the 
minds of the Dissenters. Arber says : " We suppose that 
we may rightly call that printing organization, which two 
members of the Leyden Church carried on — Thomas 
Brewer, the sleeping partner, finding the money, and ap- 
parently asking no questions ; and William Brewster, the 
working partner, organizing and managing it — The Pil- 
grim Press." 

Brewer occupied a house near Robinson's, in Bell Alley, 
and it was in the garret of this house that the printing 
materials were kept and the type was set. The sheets of the 
various publications were run off at the presses of some of 
the Dutch printers to whom they were sent. This was easily 
manageable so long as the pubHcations were not too explo- 
sive. At length, however, there was an outbreak of sov- 
ereign wrath across the channel which compelled attention. 
Two books by David Calderwood — both issued in 1619 — 
one entitled "Perth Assembly," the other, "A Brief Account 
of Discipline in the Scotch Church," brought such a storm 
of protest from King James that the university authori- 
ties were obliged to call a halt and seize the type from 
which these books were set up and printed. This incident 
gave occasion for voluminous diplomatic correspondence 
between the English officials on the one side and the Dutch 
and university officials on the other side. The result was 
that the English officer was permitted to take Brewer to 
London on pledge of the government that he should be 
returned in safety. The fact is that Brewster was the 
man whom James wanted. Had he been able to lay hands 
on him it would have gone ill with the good elder. For 
more than a year he was kept in safe hiding. But though 
Brewer escaped this time, he was forced to suffer many 
persecutions and endure a long imprisonment afterwards. 
The record is that for a period of fourteen years — or 
from 1626 to 1640 — in addition to a heavy money pay- 
ment, he was confined by the bishops in the King's Bench 



128 THE PILGRIMS 

Prison. He was released by petition to the House of 
Lords, but he Hved only about a month after his hberation. 

Of Isaac Allerton one hesitates to write. He was a man 
who gave promise of being of eminent service to the colony. 
He had marked ability, executive force, and at 
Allerton i\^q outset he met the expectations of his as- 
sociates ; but at the end he failed them in a 
way which was much to his discredit, and his career was 
disappointing. Trusted in the beginning, and chosen to 
conduct many important negotiations, he became untrust- 
worthy before he was through, and involved the colony in 
much distress. At one time the richest man in the colony, 
he lapsed into poverty ; and he died, pitied but distrusted 
by his brethren. It has been said of him that " he was 
almost the only one of the original Pilgrim body, and the 
only one eminent among them, who failed to maintain a 
good reputation." 

Robert Cushman was a man whose action as agent of the 
exiles at a certain important juncture in their affairs ex- 
posed him to sharp criticism at the time, and 
Cushman j^^s been the occasion of no little controversy 
since. His management of the business with 
the Adventurers created grave uneasiness in the minds of 
those whom he represented and caused serious dissatisfac- 
tion. In the series of mishaps which befell the little band 
in starting out on their long voyage he was thought by 
some to have shown the white feather. Bradford, sweet 
and charitable as he was by nature, did not hesitate, many 
years afterwards, to put this intimation on record. The 
intimation may have had warrant in the misgiving and 
alarm of the hour; but a character so pure and disinter- 
ested as Cushman possessed, and services so valuable and 
conspicuous as those which he rendered to the Company 
with which his name is evermore to be identified, ought not 
to be allowed to rest under a cloud because of a momentary 
failure of heart. In the final changes, made at the last 
moment, in the articles of agreement between the Pilgrims 
and the Company with which they were negotiating, Cush- 



THE PILGRIMS 129 

man did exactly the right thing. He took responsibilities 
which he ought to have taken. He had both the courage 
and the wisdom to rise to the situation. He had received 
his orders from headquarters ; and ordinarily it would 
have been his duty to carry them out both in spirit and 
letter ; but he was like a general sent into a distant coun- 
try to try conclusions with a shrewd and powerful enemy, 
and on coming into close range with him and discovering 
his actual condition and temper, knows better what to do 
than a dozen far-away ministers of state. At the psychical 
moment Cushman acted, and his prompt action saved the 
enterprise. Fault was found with him for doing what he 
did; and technically he was to be blamed; but from the 
higher standpoint of accepting responsibihty and doing his 
larger duty he was splendidly right. It is to the credit of the 
Pilgrims that they came to respect and love him once more. 
It ought to be said further concerning Cushman that to 
him belongs the unique honor of having been the author of 
the first printed discourse ever delivered in New England. 
Elder Brewster had been holding forth to the Pilgrims in 
the rude enclosure in which they had been accustomed to 
worship for the better part of a year when Cushman 
came over and gave his address on " Self-Love " ; but 
Brewster's sermons were not put in print. Cushman pref- 
aced his publication with a brief account of the country 
and the state of the Indians. This gave an added historic 
value to the discourse, and justly entitles it to be consid- 
ered, as it generally is, the beginning of our American 
literature. To the great grief and cost of the colony, 
Cushman died in the same year in which Robinson, the able 
leader, the wise counselor, and the beloved pastor, went to 
his reward. 

Samuel Fuller was a lovely character. In the hearts of 
all who know anything of him the mention of his name never 
fails to stir tender emotions. It is not known 
Fuller where he was born, but he appears to have gone 

from London to Leyden. He was a deacon in 
the Leyden church, and to the colony a physician beloved. 
Like others of the Pilgrims, Robinson included, he could 

9 



130 THE PILGRIMS 

put things in a direct and pungent way when there was 
call for so doing, as seen in the letter sent to Carver and 
Cushman — the agents of the exiles in London — to which 
his name, followed by the names of Winslow, Bradford, and 
Allerton, is affixed. But he was wise and true and tender, 
and his presence among the people must have been a per- 
petual benediction. It was this good Dr. Fuller, who, 
under the direction of Governor Bradford, responded so 
promptly to the appeal of Governor Endicott when he 
sought help in a time of severe sickness among the people, 
and whose incidental services as a peacemaker drew from 
the Salem governor these words, addressed to the Plymouth 
governor, of gratitude and joy: "I acknowledge myself 
much bound to you for your kind love and care in sending 
Mr. Fuller among us, and rejoice much that I am by him 
satisfied touching your judgment of the outward form of 
God's worship. It is, as far as I can yet gather, no other 
than is warranted by the evidence of truth, and the same 
which I have professed and maintained ever since the Lord 
in mercy revealed himself unto me ; being far from the 
common reports that hath been spread of you touching 
that particular." By his timely visit he not only healed 
the bodies of men afflicted with scurvy, but he healed minds 
which had been distempered by the tongue of slander, 
and made the relations between the two colonies sweet and 
healthy. In a group of choice spirits, like Carver and 
Bradford and Brewster and their fellows, Samuel Fuller 
was one of the choicest. 

Miles Standish, the redoubtable captain, will always stand 
out as one of the conspicuous personalities of this little band 

of our forefathers. One almost smiles at the 
Standish apparent incongruity of such a man in such 

a fellowship. He was of " small stature and 
choleric temper " ; but self-reliant and of dauntless cour- 
age, fertile in resources and prompt to act when action was 
called for, true-hearted and always to be trusted in what 
he promised, sound of judgment on practical matters and 
a man of great and indispensable service to the colony 
with which he became identified. 



THE PILGRIMS 131 

He was certainly the most picturesque figure in the 
whole group. This is the way Longfellow has sketched 
him in the opening lines of his " Courtship " : 

" In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims, 
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling. 
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather, 
Strode, with a martial air, jVliJes Standish the Puritan Captain. 

Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic. 
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron; 
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already 
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in Novemoer." 

Hubbard says of him : " A little chimney is soon fired ; 
so was the Plymouth Captain, a man of very small stature, 
yet of a very hot and angry temper. The fire of his pas- 
sion soon kindled, and blown up into a flame of hot words, 
might easily have consumed all, had it not been seasonably 
quenched." But Justin Winsor, commenting on this, adds 
the proper corrective : " The account thus given by Hub- 
bard has been considered, and rightly too, as graphic, but 
flippant and unjust." This is the right view. Unques- 
tionably, he was of a temper to excite some apprehension 
in sober minds ; but he was a man of force and unswerving 
loyalty to duty. When there was work to be done he did 
not stay to count the cost nor to take account of dangers. 
Prince bears high and worthy testimony to his character 
by calhng him " one of those heroes of antiquity who chose 
to ' suffer with the people of God rather than to enjoy the 
pleasures of sin for a season,' and ' who through faith sub- 
dued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, 
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, 
escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made 
strong, waxed mighty in war, and turned to flight armies 
of aliens.' " 

Nevertheless he was not the kind of person whom we 
should naturally expect to find voluntarily associating 
himself with the Pilgrims. 

For, to begin with, he originated in a Roman Catholic 
family, and was brought up, so it is supposed, under 
Roman CathoHc influences. Duxbury Hall, Lancashire, 



132 THE PILGRIMS 

was his birthplace and early home. The date of his birth 
is not known, but inferences locate it somewhere in the year 
1584. With Roman Cathohc blood in his veins, and with 
a Roman Catholic home training, to say nothing of the 
standing of the circle into which life introduced him, it 
seems not a little strange to find him in close affiliation 
with these Reformers of Reformers and Protestants of 
Protestants. 

Then he was a man of war. The fact that he was a man 
of war, and connected with the division of the English 
army which was sent over into the Netherlands to assist 
in the terrific conflict which this heroic people was waging 
against the aggressive despotism of Spain, goes far, no 
doubt, to explain his break with the faith of his fathers, 
and his revolt against all forms of tyranny. 

Behind all it seems that grievous financial wrongs had 
been done him by members of his family. In his will he 
bequeathed to his son, Alexander Standish, certain landed 
properties in England. These properties he specified, and 
added that they had been given to him as right heir by 
lawful descent, but which had been " surreptitiously de- 
tained " from him. This practical robbery forced him 
to earn a livelihood as best he might. Like many of the 
high-bred and strenuous youth of his time he went into 
the army and made soldiering his vocation. 

This decision is what took him into Holland. Quite 
likely he was one of the contingent retained in the Low 
Countries by England to garrison the towns which were 
delivered into her keeping by Holland and Zealand in 
pledge of the payment of the troops which Elizabeth sent 
over to aid them in the struggle against Philip. If this 
conjecture be correct, the soldier would have had abundant 
opportunity for forming acquaintance with his fellow 
countrymen who were living in exile in Bell Alley. 

Just the same it seems somewhat queer to find this pro- 
fessional soldier, who is not known to have been a member 
of their church, and who appears never to have shrunk 
from a fight, though he never provoked one, enrolled in 
the fellowship of these peace-loving Pilgrims. Robinson 
may not have felt this incongruity ; still he was not with- 



THE PILGRIMS 133 

out some distrust of the " military spirit " of Standish. 
In one of the last communications received by the Ply- 
mouth brethren from their beloved pastor at Leyden, and 
addressed to his " loving and much beloved friend," the 
governor, he expresses a keen sorrow over " the killing of 
those poor Indians " at Wessagusset by Standish, and ven- 
tures to add : " How happy a thing had it been, if you had 
converted some, before you had killed any " ; for besides 
being a good thing in itself this desire is strengthened by 
the further consideration that " when blood is once begun 
to be shed, it is seldom staunced of a long time after." 

This is a pretty good all-around anti-war argument. 
But the pacific and humane pastor made his criticism still 
more pointed by saying: " Upon this occasion let me be 
bold to exhort you seriously to consider of the disposition 
of your Captain, whom I love, and am persuaded the Lord 
in great mercy and for much good hath sent you him, if 
you use him aright. He is a man humble and meek amongst 
you, and towards all in ordinary course. But now if this 
be merely from an humane spirit, there is cause to fear 
that by occasion, especially of provocation, there may be 
wanting the tenderness of the life of man (made after 
God's image) which is meet." 

This " military spirit " was no doubt bom in Standish ; 
and it had been developed and trained, as we have seen, by 
actual experience. It was well for Bradford and his asso- 
ciates to be on guard against it. But for all this, and in 
spite of the misfit which, at first flush, he seems, Standish 
was of immense value to the Pilgrims. Both by instinct 
and discipline he was thoroughly fitted for the part he 
was to play in the unfolding drama of the hfe and purpose 
of this epoch-making company. They do well to guard 
with sacred care " the sword of Damascus " which he 
" fought with in Flanders " among the priceless heirlooms 
at Plymouth. It was also a fit thing to rear a monument 
to his memory in the town which bears the name of his 
ancestral seat, and on the hill near which he hved and died, 
and that longer than the monument will commemorate the 
rank and fame of this heroic military leader. 



134 THE PILGRIMS 



VIII 

What the exiles were doing, aside from earning their 
daily bread, during the years they spent in Leyden, has in 
part been intimated already. Brewster, with 
Books Brewer to back him through what Arber has 

printed and called The Pilgrim Press, was printing books, 
controver- Attention has been called, on a previous page, 
sies stirred j^q ^y^^ Qf these books which were published, and, 
^P by the indirect and secret methods then neces- 

sary, distributed to the consternation and 
wrath of the powers that then were over in the dominion of 
King James. These English Separatists consented to put 
in type copy brought to them by Scotch Presbyterians for 
the reasons that the bodies had a common foe. Puritanism 
under whatever banner was forced to fight for its rights ; 
and assaults made anywhere were assaults in which all 
lovers of truth were vitally concerned, and victories gained 
anywhere were victories in which all lovers of truth could 
rejoice. 

To a couple of the first books issued by Brewster he gave 
his name in the imprint. After this, for obvious reasons, 
liis name was withheld. It has to be by other means, there- 
fore, than information given on the title-page that the 
sources from which the books were sent out into the world 
by The Pilgrim Press can be determined. In all there were 
probably not less than fifteen different publications which 
found their way into the hands of eager readers through 
the agency of Brewster at Leyden. But in this business 
great care had to be taken, even under the shelter of Dutch 
toleration, to avoid detection. At length, as has been 
stated, the university authorities had to yield to remon- 
strances from London and put a stop to this issuing of 
books so distasteful and so threatening to the authority of 
kings and the supremacy of bishops. By royal and 
ecclesiastical dignitaries alike, outside of the Netherlands, 
Brewster was regarded as a dynamiter who at any moment 
might scatter thrones and priestly assumptions into a 
thousand fragments. The Stuart sovereign and Arch- 



THE PILGRIMS 135 

bishop Laud were not wholly without warrant for their 
fears. Give truth free course and in the end it is sure to 
blow up all lies and pretensions. Get justice fairly into 
the minds of men and injustice goes to the wall. 



IX 

Robinson was drawn into a service more open to the 
world. In addition to preaching and exercising pastoral 

care over his flock, he came into close relations 
Kobinson ^Jth Leyden's distinguished educational insti- 
in great tution, and through this relation secured a 
debate memorable prominence. As Thomas Brewer 

had done several months before him, and as 
John Greenwood did a decade after him, Robinson was 
matriculated in the university, though this step was not 
taken till he had been in Leyden six years. This gave him 
a place at the front and launched him into the thick of a 
strenuous wrestle. Soon after it was founded, Arminius 
took a course of six years at this seat of learning, and 
the closing six years of his life were devoted to the duties 
of a professorship in this same great school. Arminius 
died only a few months after the Pilgrims arrived at 
Leyden, and while the controversy over his views was still 
hot. But Episcopius, the favorite and faithful pupil of 
Arminius, was in the full flush of his manly vigor and the 
stout defender of the doctrines of his venerated teacher. 
Professor PoUander was the sturdy champion of the oppo- 
site view. Robinson held to the Calvinistic side in the 
controversy, and in virtue of his ability, which had now 
secured recognition in intelHgent and influential circles, 
he was put forward by Poliander, the foremost of the fol- 
lowers of the great Genevan in the university and in the city, 
to defend their positions. Robinson entered on the de- 
bate with the advantage that he was familiar with the 
teachings and methods of both instructors — Episcopius 
and PoHander. As was natural, the divinity section of the 
school was divided into two hostile camps. Things had 
come to such a pass of prejudice and bitterness, so Brad- 



136 THE PILGRIMS 

ford tells us, that " few of the disciples " of one professor 
" would hear the other teach." " But Mr. Robinson . . . 
went constantly to hear their readings, and heard the one as 
well as the other ; by which reason he was so well grounded 
in the controversy, and saw the force of all their arguments, 
and knew the shifts of the adversary, and being himself 
very able none was better fitted to buckle with them." It 
ought to be said in justice to his modesty that Robinson was 
not overforward for this conspicuousness, but was pressed 
into the service. " He was loath, being a stranger," to 
advance to such a dispute, " yet the other " — Poliander — 
" did importune him, and told him that such was the abil- 
ity and nimbleness of the adversary, that the truth would 
suffer if he did not help them." In continuing the account 
Bradford adds : " So he condescended, and prepared him- 
self against the time; and when the day came, the Lord 
did so help him to defend the truth and foil this adversary 
as he put him to an apparent non-plus in this great and 
public audience. And the like he did two or three times." 
This skill and success in debate " caused many to praise 
God that the truth had so famous victory." It further- 
more secured for the hero of the contest " much honor and 
respect from those learned men and others which loved the 
truth." 

This incident in the career of Robinson was brought 
forward by Bradford, it will be remembered, to refute the 
slander that the Dutch wanted to get rid of the exiles. 
Most admirably does it serve that purpose; but it also 
goes to show what the wise and able leader of .the exiles 
was doing during a portion of the Leyden period, and on 
what profound themes he was exercising his mind. He 
was alive to the burning questions of the hour; and both 
his abilities and his attainments were of an order to make 
a deep impression on thoughtful men. 



But the appearance of Robinson in public debate on a 
religious question of immediate and absorbing interest 
simply suggests rather than tells the story of his intellec- 




JOHN' ROniXSON S IIOUSK, I.KYDKN, Ilor.l.ANl) 



THE PILGRIMS 137 

tual activity. Through all those years in Holland he was 
doing many things in the same line. In earnest brain work, 
as well as in heroic and self-sacrificing deeds, 
Further ac- jjg ^a,s facing the religious issues of his age, 
tivity of and doing his best to throw light on the prob- 
Kobinson lems to be solved. If we turn to the chronolog- 
ical index of his works, it will be seen that more 
than half of the three volumes which comprise his pub- 
lished works was given to the world within the years 
1609—1619 inclusive. All of the second volume on " Jus- 
tification of Separatism from the Church of England," and 
the larger section of the third volume, including such im- 
portant contributions to the vital thought of his times as 
" Christian Fellowship," " Religious Communion," the 
" Exercise of Prophecy," and a " Just and Necessary 
Apology," fall into this decade. While the members of his 
little flock were busy at their humble tasks day by day 
earning a livelihood for themselves and their wives and their 
children, their faithful and beloved pastor was in his 
study, pondering the deep things of God and trying to 
get the " more light " which had broken in upon his own 
mind from the divine Word to shed its illumination into 
their minds. 

We think of Robinson as genuinely conscientious and 
sincere, as loving and considerate, as wise with the wisdom 
which is bom of a high moral purpose and 
Bobinson's tenderness of heart, and withal as never want- 
high order jjjg [j^ loyalty to truth and the courage of his 
of mind convictions. But he was more than this. He 
was a man of rare intellect. He had large 
mental faculties. He saw things ; he knew things ; and he 
was master of the art of putting things in that rugged 
English of his day so that others could see and know them. 
Not yet have even his followers, to say nothing of the 
world at large, come into a full and proper appreciation of 
this rare man. Dr. O. S. Davis has rendered a valuable 
service to religious literature and to the faith and polity 
of which the Pilgrim pastor was the exponent, in his book 
on " John Robinson." But his closing chapter on 
*' The Man and His Place in History " can hardly be ac- 



138 THE PILGRIMS 

cepted as an adequate estimate of the high intellectual abil- 
ities of Robinson. He was larger-brained than the type 
of man there drawn. He was remarkable for the whiteness 
of his soul, and the sweetness of his disposition, and the 
high order of his courage, and the superb dominancy of 
liis conscience; but he was also remarkable for the lofty 
qualities of his mind. His fine character and his patient 
submission to a lowly lot in life have largely obscured the 
vision of writers dealing with him to his superior intel- 
lectual capacities. Both in natural endowments, however, 
and in the keen edge which he put upon his mind by study 
and reflection, this quiet pastor of a small flock deserves 
eminent rank. His thinking was pitched to a high key for 
the reason that his thinking powers were of a high sort. 
He reached logical results because he had a mind capable 
of moving straight on from sound premise to sound con- 
clusion. It is time that suitable recognition were ac- 
corded to his intellectual gifts, and the world made to 
see that in mental as well as moral endowments this 
Enghsh Separatist — forced into exile by the heartless 
tyranny of the civil and ecclesiastical rulers of the 
country he loved — was fitted to represent and direct a 
movement which meant so much at the hour, and which 
with each unfolding century has come to mean more and 
more to religion, to political freedom, and to the progress 
of Christian civiHzation throughout the world. 



XI 

But in addition to what has been indicated already 
what were the Pilgrims doing at Leyden.'' 

For one thing they were establishing, or reestabhshing, 
their simple homes and cultivating their domestic virtues. 

They were marrying and giving in marriage, 
Marriages ^^^^ ^q ^j^g \yQg^ of their ability bringing up 

their children in the nurture and admonition of 
the Lord. Accepting the results obtained by painstaking 
examinations of original and official documents, made by 
such competent investigators as George Sumner, a brother 



THE PILGRIMS 139 

of Charles Sumner, Hon. Henry C. Murphy, at one time 
United States Minister at The Hague, Dr. Griffis, and 
the two Dexters, who put a large amount of time and not 
a little expense into these researches, it is found that from 
1609, in the spring of which year the Pilgrims reached 
Leyden, to 1620, the year of the departure — both years 
included — forty-six marriages were registered. This, as 
one of these authors has said, " is a pretty fair record for 
a church company never at any one time numbering over 
probably three hundred communicants " to make for itself 
in a httle more than ten years. Children were born into 
these homes of the Pilgrims. It has been conjectured that 
there were not less than twenty children in the company 
when the removal was made from Amsterdam, and that 
" about one hundred were born or lived a longer or shorter 
space in Holland." Family life, hke the church life, went 
on in an orderly and happy way, and the rewards of 
industry and economy were enough to give these strangers 
in a strange city a tolerable measure of prosperity and 
comfort. 

Within the dates just named — 1609-1620 — thirty- 
three members of the colony became citizens of Leyden. 

Doubtless there were two motives for this step. 
Citizenship Q^e was that these men, or some of them at 

least, wanted to be in closer affiliation with the 
people about them than was possible if they simply stood 
oif and maintained an alien attitude. They were under the 
shelter of the government, and they were more than will- 
ing to show their appreciation of the liberty and protec- 
tion they were enjoying by becoming subjects of the 
government. Another motive was self-interest. Manu- 
facturing along various lines was carried on extensively in 
Leyden. The Pilgrims had learned trades by which to 
make their living. Much of manufacturing business was 
in the hands of guilds. The guilds of those days were in 
some respects the labor unions of our days. One had to 
belong to them to get on. But to be a member of a guild 
it was necessary to be a citizen. The bearing of this is 
obvious. With their shrewdness, their self-respect, their 
determination, and in their circumstances of need, these 



140 THE PILGRIMS 

exiles naturally availed themselves of any help which 
promised to make it easier for them to earn an honest 
living. 

The Pilgrims must have taken a warm interest in the 
reHgious questions which were then agitating the minds of 
the people of Holland. They were religious 
Warm in- men. They were where they were because of 
terest in their religious convictions. We know the topics 
religious which were uppermost in the thoughts of Rob- 
questions inson, and the extent to which he became in- 
volved in the theological controversies of the 
times. It was Protestantism against Catholicism ; it was 
Calvinism against Lutherism; it was rigid Calvinism 
against moderate Calvinism ; and the whole land was a 
battle-ground of warring opinions. In the circle of their 
homes, at their daily tasks, when they met by the way, on 
the Sabbath, these subjects were in their minds and on 
their tongues. Meditating on these great themes day and 
night, and discussing them constantly one with another, 
they became clear in their views and strong in their con- 
victions, and at the same time broader and more tol- 
erant in their sympathies. It admits of no question that 
Robinson made progress with the years, and that he was 
further on and more catholic in his ideas of Christian fel- 
lowship at the end than at the beginning of his leadership. 



xn 

But there was something else of much importance which 
these Pilgrims were doing at Leyden. They were getting 
their ecclesiastical polity out of gristle into 
Church bone. They were defining to their own minds 

polity with an increasing distinctness the system of 

church government which they had adopted, 
and habituating themselves to the use of this system in the 
practical management of church affairs. 

At Scrooby these Separatists had taken their stand for 
independence and self-government. It was once for all. 
Come what might in cost or pain, there was to be no flinch- 



THE PILGRIMS 141 

ing. At Plymouth they were to work out their scheme on 
a large scale, and demonstrate by a success beyond dispute 
the practicability of this method of maintaining order and 
promoting fellowship and securing efficiency in churches. 
But at Leyden the task was to perfect the system and get 
it thoroughly domesticated in the minds of this little 
group who had become adherents of the Congregational 
Way. 

This was an undertaking not altogether easy. At the 
outset Robert Browne had a clear conception of the sys- 
tem both in respect to the autonomy of the local church 
and the fellowship of the whole body of churches similarly 
organized and conducted. He had difficulty in working 
the plan ; but his notion of the plan was lucid. 

The very simplicity of the idea, however, seemed to make 
it hard for some people to apprehend and apply it. It 
involved the use of too httle machinery and implied too 
much confidence in the sanctified common sense of the laity. 
The notion advanced by Cartwright and taken up by 
Barrowe and adopted in one modification of it by Johnson 
and in another by Ainsworth, that church government is 
incomplete and liable to end in serious disaster without the 
balance-wheel of the eldership, seemed to be pretty thor- 
oughly ingrained in the thought of large numbers of the 
Separatists. It fell to the lot of Robinson and his asso- 
ciates in the faith to work clear of this notion, and show to 
the world that elders are not essential factors in the man- 
agement of churches, and that order and prosperity in 
churches do not depend on the incorporation of these offi- 
cials into the system of church government. 

There was one elder in the Leyden church; but so far 
as appears there was only one. When Brewster went to 
America, he left the eldership vacant and no successor to 
the office was ever chosen. Nor was his function as elder 
so much to rule in an authoritative way over the people of 
God as to be what Dr. Morton Dexter has called a moral 
leader and adviser. Bradford speaks of him as " an assist- 
ant " to Robinson, and it was for this reason that he was 
chosen to be an elder. In this office, no doubt, he con- 
tinued to be " an assistant," and not an authoritative 



142 THE PILGRIMS 

ruler. Under the circumstances, to cut loose from the idea 
of a select body of men in whom the power to control the 
church is to be lodged was a large achievement. 

But tliis is what the Leyden Separatists under the guid- 
ance of Robinson succeeded in doing. Ahen elements were 
eliminated from the system, or put in the way 
Attempt Qf elimination, and Congregationalism in its 
successful simplicity was set up and operated; and when 
Brewster and Bradford and the rest of them 
came to America they brought with them not only a theory 
of self-government for churches, but an actual experience 
of self-government for churches on which they could fall 
back with confidence. 

They could fall back on this experience with the more 
confidence because the system had worked so well. How 
beautiful is Bradford's testimony to the peace and orderli- 
ness of that little Leyden flock. " Being thus settled, they 
continued many years in a comfortable condition, enjoying 
much sweet and delightful society and spiritual comfort 
together in the ways of God under the able ministry 
and prudent government of Mr. John Robinson and Mr. 
William Brewster. ... So as they grew in knowledge and 
other gifts and graces of the Spirit of God, and lived to- 
gether in peace, and love, and holiness . . . and if at any 
time any differences arose, or offenses broke out (as it 
cannot be, but some time there will, even amongst the best 
of men) they were ever so met with, and nipped in the head 
betimes, or otherwise so well composed, as still love, peace, 
and communion was continued; or else the church purged 
of those that were incurable and incorrigible, when after 
much patience used, no other means would serve, which 
seldom came to pass. . . . Such was the true piety, the 
humble zeal, and fervent love of this people (while they 
lived together) towards God and his ways, and the single 
heartiness and sincere affection one towards another, that 
they came as near the primitive pattern of the first 
churches, as any other church of these later times have 
done, according to their rank and quality." 

To the same effect is the splendid tribute paid by Robin- 
son himself to the wise self-control and high Christian char- 



THE PILGRIMS 143 

acter of this ecclesiastical democracy in his extinguishino- 
reply to Richard Bernard : " If ever I saw the beauty ol" 
Sion, and the glory of the Lord fiUing his tabernacle, it 
hath been in the manifestations of the divers graces of God 
in the church, in that heavenly harmony and comely order, 
wherein by the grace of God we are set and walk ; wherein, 
if your eyes had but seen the brethren's sober and modest 
carriage one towards another, their humble and willing 
submission to their guides in the Lord, their tender com- 
passion towards the weak, their fervent zeal against scan- 
dalous offenders, and their long-suffering towards all, you 
would, I am persuaded, change your mind, and be com- 
pelled to take up your parable, and bless, where you pur- 
posed to curse." 



XIII 

Life at Leyden was hard, but it was educational. Under 
the severe discipline of it the Pilgrims were confirmed in 
their purpose to maintain their views, hold 
Life at together, and go straight on. Without the 

Leyden experience of those testing years in Holland 

helpful they would not have been fitted for the " great 

and honorable actions " of the subsequent years 
in America, which had to be " both enterprised and over- 
come with answerable courages." They were stronger, 
they were wiser, they were in every way better for their 
sojourn and intercourse with the Dutch. From the incep- 
tion of the movement at Scrooby to the consummation of 
it at Plymouth, the providence of God is nowhere and in 
nothing more marked than in leading the advocates of a 
free church and founders of a free state through a land 
whose people had illustrated the loftiest heroism and made 
every sacrifice demanded of them in order to rid their 
country of ecclesiastical and civil tyranny. 



VIII 
LEAVING LEYDEN 



Coming events of serious importance began to cast their shadows before 
during 1617. Gradually it was becoming evident to the Pilgrims that 
Holland did not, and could not, afford the sort of refuge and opportunity 
which they desired. Reluctant though they were to emigrate again, and 
uncertain though they were where to go, they seem to have decided this 
year that their very existence as a church, and even as a body of EngUsh 
people, depended upon some such step. — The Dextebs. 

I persuade myself, never people upon earth hved more lovingly, and 
parted more sweetly than we, the Church at Leyden, did. Not rashly, in a 
distracted humoiu*; but, upon joint and serious deUberation, often seeking 
the mind of God, by fasting and prayer: whose gracious presence we not 
only found with us ; but his blessing upon us from that time to this instant : 
to the indignation of our adversaries, the admiration of strangers, and the 
exceeding consolation of ourselves. — Edwakd Winslow. 

So they left the goodly and pleasant city, which had been their resting 
place near twelve years; but they knew they were pilgrims, and looked not 
much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest 
country, and quieted their spirits. — William Bradford. 

Now sails are ready as the wings 

Of rising bird, outstretched for flight; 
Around the keel the water sings. 

And breezes to the sea invite. 
Now, gathered here. 

The Pilgrims kneel in prayer. 

Isaac Bassett Choate. 



I' 



VIII 
LEAVING LEYDEN 

THE Pilgrims, through their daily employments, had 
close connection with the people of Leyden, and there 
can be no doubt that they derived much satisfaction 
and help from the sweet Christian fellowship which they 
were permitted to enjoy with them wliile residents of their 
city ; but they were English — EngHsh to the core — and 
they never struck any very deep roots in Dutch soil. They 
were among the Dutch, but they were not of them. Their 
thoughts were " long, long thoughts." They were not at 
home in their feehngs, and they were not satisfied to re- 
main where they were. They were not quite able to inter- 
pret it, but there was a voice of destiny sounding in their 
souls. The spirit of prophecy was upon them. Their 
young men saw visions, and their old men dreamed dreams. 
Something afar beckoned them. They knew they were 
pilgrims, and they kept girded for their journey. They 
could not escape the service for which God had raised them 
up. They were very grateful for the shelter which the free 
institutions and the liberty-loving spirit of the citizens of 
the Netherlands afforded them from the storm which beat 
so furiously upon them in the home-land, and for the op- 
portunity cheerfully granted to earn their daily bread and 
worship God according to the dictates of their own con- 
sciences ; but they could not think of a final abode in 
Holland. As a matter of fact no very serious efforts were 
ever made looking to this end. 



148 THE PILGRIMS 



As early as 1617, or three years before the migration 
actually occurred, the Pilgrims began to look the question 

of removal squarely in the face. Other ques- 
Removal tions, of course, such as the country to which 
contem- they should go, and the auspices under which 

plated their change of residence should be attempted, 

were mixed in with this preliminary one of 
going or not going; and the discussion would necessarily 
assume, not only an earnest tone, but a wide range. But 
the leading question was whether they — those English 
exiles — should stay where they were, and work out their 
destiny as best they might, or go elsewhere. This question 
was soon settled. There were various opinions on the sub- 
ject. It was a matter, however, between themselves; and 
matters between themselves, through prayer and confer- 
ence and mutual love, were amicably and in general 
promptly adjusted. The obstacles to removal, the sacri- 
fices which would have to be made and the hardship which 
would have to be endured if a removal were attempted, were 
clearly and impressively stated. "It was answered," so 
Bradford tells us, " that all great and honorable actions 
are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both 
enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. It 
was granted the dangers were great, but not desperate; 
the difficulties were many, but not invincible. . . . True it 
was, that such attempts were not to be made and under- 
taken without good ground and reason — not rashly or 
lightly, as many have done, for curiosity and hope of gain. 
But their condition was not ordinary ; their ends were good 
and honorable, their calhng lawful and urgent, and there- 
fore they might expect the blessing of God in their pro- 
ceeding. Yea, though they should lose their lives in this 
action, yet might they have comfort in the same, and their 
endeavors would be honorable." Hence " it was fully con- 
cluded by the major part to put this design in execution, 
and to prosecute it by the best means they could." It was 
a brave conclusion, and one which called for heroic self- 
denial, resolute purpose, and a mighty faith in God; but 



THE PILGRIMS 



149 



it was an act in line with the history and prophetic of the 
future of these dauntless Pilgrims. 

These statements are general, and have to do with the 
matter of removal in all its bearings. Before reaching 
them, however, in his history, Bradford puts on record 
the reasons for the action of the Pilgrims on this one 
specific question of going or not going. For substance, 
these reasons are as follows : 

First, they could not hope to grow to any considerable 
extent in the circumstances in which they found themselves 
in Leyden. " The hardness of the place and 
No chance country " were such " as few in comparison 
for growth would come to them, and fewer that would bide 
it out, and continue with them. For many that 
came to them, and many more that desired to be with them, 
could not endure the great labor and hard fare, with other 
inconveniences which they underwent and were contented 
with." 

Second, the leaders in the movement were getting old — 
some of them prematurely so in consequence of their hard 
toils ; and if the body they represented was 
to be kept together, and the influence of their 
protest in behalf of rehgious freedom was to 
be perpetuated, there must be removal. In no 
could their future be secured. " The people 
generally bore all these difficulties very cheerfully, and with 
a resolute courage, being in the best and strength of their 
years, yet old age began to steal on many of them, ... so 
as it was not only probably thought, but apparently seen, 
that within a few years more they would be in danger to 
scatter, by necessities pressing them, or sink under their 
burden, or both." 

Third, there was the thought of the moral and spiritual 
safety of their children. A wise solicitude for those who 
are to succeed them and bear their names in 
the world has always been a characteristic of 
godly parents. The words of Bradford show 
how tender and profound was the interest which 
these devout fathers and mothers took in their 
" For many of their children, that were of best 



Securing a 
future 



other 



way 



Welfare 
of their 
children 



offspring. 



150 THE PILGRIMS 

dispositions and gracious inclinations, having learned to 
bear the yoke in their youth, and willing to bear part of 
their parents' burden, were oftentimes so oppressed with 
their heavy labors, though their minds were free and will- 
ing, yet their bodies bowed under the weight of the same, 
and became decrepit in their early youth, the vigor of 
nature being consumed in the very bud, as it were. But 
that which was more lamentable, and of all sorrows most 
heavy to be borne, was that many of their children, by these 
occasions, and the great licentiousness of youth in that 
country, and the manifold temptations of the place, were 
drawn away by evil examples into extravagant and danger- 
ous courses, getting the reins off their necks, and departing 
from their parents. Some became soldiers, others took upon 
them far voyages by sea, and others some worse courses, 
tending to dissoluteness and the danger of their souls, to 
the great grief of their parents and dishonor of God. So 
that they saw their posterity would be in danger to de- 
generate and be corrupted." 

The statement in the foregoing paragraph that " some 
became soldiers " had a special significance at the time and 

in the circumstances in which it was made. On 
war at ^.j^^ ^^^ hand the truce between the Dutch and 

hand i\^q Spaniards, which had been in force since 

1609, was approaching its termination, and 
hostilities might break out again with all the old fierceness 
at any moment after 1619. On the other hand, the long 
and bloody conflict, which was to be known in history as 
the Thirty Years' War, had already begun, and was ra- 
ging with the cruelty and destructiveness of an irresistible 
conflagration in Bohemia. The signs were ominous. The 
clouds in the pohtical sky were black with threats. The 
hour seemed to be hastening when Protestantism and Ca- 
tholicism throughout Europe were to be involved in a death- 
struggle. All up and down the lands young men would 
be sucked into the vortex of battle, and their lives would be 
sacrificed, or their morals would be corrupted, and their 
whole future blighted. With the smell of powder in the 
air, and the tramp of approaching armies and the thunder 
of guns falling on their ears, it is no wonder that thosa 



THE PILGRIMS 151 

Leyden exiles, who laid so much stress on pure and upright 
character, and to whom their cause was so sacred, should 
think of their sons and their future welfare. 

Fourth, the ardent desire these exiles had to spread 
abroad a knowledge of Christ and to aid in building up 
his kingdom. Or, to give this, too, in Brad- 
Building ford's own words : " Lastly (which was not 
up the least), a great hope and inward zeal they had 

kingdom ^f laying some good foundation, or at least 
to make some way thereunto, for the propa- 
gating and advancing the gospel of the Kingdom of Christ 
in those remote parts of the world ; yea, though they 
should be even as stepping-stones unto others for the per- 
forming of so great a work." 

These were the reasons advanced in justification of the 
action proposed and taken. Well might they be called by 
the wise man who formulated them " weighty and solid." 

A distinguished ex-governor of Massachusetts has been 
at pains to say repeatedly, when addressing assemblies 
on Forefathers' Day, and on other occasions when the 
Pilgrims were under consideration, that these men came to 
our shores in part, at least, as a business venture. Of 
necessity there was a business side to their movement. 
There had to be. There had to be just as there had to be 
a business side to the movement of Carey when he went to 
India, or of Livingstone when he went to Africa, or of the 
Iowa Band when it went out into that new state beyond 
the Mississippi. 

But the overmastering passion of these rare souls was 
religion. In their actions they were controlled by loyalty 
to God and loyalty to humanity. They crossed the water 
in obedience to an unselfish purpose ; and to attribute any 
lower motive to them is to misread their lives and misinter- 
pret their aims. 



152 THE PILGRIMS 



II 



It having been definitely settled that they were to leave 
Leyden, the next question to which the Pilgrims had to 
give serious attention was the country on 
Deciding which they should fix for a permanent home, 
where they ^g might have been expected, these men of 
should go Qq^ began their conference on this grave 
matter with " humble prayer " for divine " di- 
rection and guidance." 

Two preferences were expressed. 

One was for Guiana, or other fertile spot in the hot 
countries. Guiana was named most likely because Raleigh, 
twenty years before, had published a book in which the 
attractions of this region were set forth in glowing colors. 
As another has said, he made it appear to be a " romantic 
paradise ... a fair, rich, and mighty empire, where the 
trees were in delicious groves, where the deer came at call, 
where the singing birds were singing a thousand charming 
tunes to gentle airs in the forest, and where the very stones 
beneath their feet promised gold and silver." It was a 
fascinating picture well fitted to capture the imagination 
of men whose courage was not tempered by sober judg- 
ment, and whose ruling motives were not godliness, but 
gain. 

Substantial reasons were advanced, as they well might 
be, for going to Guiana ; but still more substantial reasons 
were urged for not selecting this country. It was admit- 
ted that " the country was both fruitful and pleasant ; 
and might yield riches and maintenance to the possessors 
more easily than the others ; yet other things considered, 
it could not be so fit for them. And first, that such hot 
countries are subject to grievous diseases and many 
noisome impediments, which other more temperate places 
are freer from; and would not so well agree with our 
English bodies. Again, if they should there live and do 
well, the jealous Spaniard would never suffer them long; 
but would displant or overthrow them, as he did the 
French in Florida, who seated further from his richest 



THE PILGRIMS 153 

countries ; and the sooner, because they should have Tione 
to protect them; and their own strength would be too 
small to resist so potent an enemy and so near a neighbor." 

The men who were wise enough to take these positions 
did not need to go to school to subsequent events to learn 
the true inwardness either of Spain or South America. 
They knew beforehand what all the world knows now. 
Holland was a good place in which to absorb practical 
knowledge of the spirit of Spanish rulers. 

The other preference was for Virginia. 

The idea of migration to America had long been in the 
English mind. A home in the wilderness on the other side 
of the Atlantic was a favorite dream with men who were 
restless and wished more scope for the exercise of their 
powers, or for men who were oppressed and desired to 
escape the hard conditions imposed by unjust laws and 
tyrannical rulers. As early as 1592, or more than a quar- 
ter of a century before the event with which we have to do, 
a petition for liberty to form a Separatist colony to go to 
this new land was presented to Queen Elizabeth. It was 
only natural that the Pilgrims should have thought of 
going across the waters. If a change of residence was to 
be made, it must be some country outside the country of 
their birth. America, with all its hardships and perils, 
some of which were never so much as imagined till they 
were realized in experience, seemed to be the only country, 
with doors wide open, and hberty ample enough to permit 
them to go in and out unhindered in the enjoyment of their 
own faith, and in the service of God and man. 

But the arguments against the selection of Virginia 
were conclusive. To go there would be to establish them- 
selves within easy reach of the persecuting power from 
which they had fled, while at the same time they would be 
out of reach of efl'ective help from those who were favor- 
ably disposed towards them. 

" At length, the conclusion was to live as a distinct body 
by themselves under the general government of Virginia; 
and by their friends to sue His Majesty that he would be 
pleased to grant them Freedom of Religion ; and that this 
might be obtained, they were put in good hope by some 



154 THE PILGRIMS 

Great Persons of good rank and quality that were made 
their friends." The highest kind of practical sagacity 
again ! For at the end of all these years who can see 
what wiser course was open to them? 

But let it not be forgotten that these men began their 
consultation over the question of Whither with " humble 
prayers " for divine " direction and assistance." Is it 
possible to doubt, or, if it is possible, is it reasonable to 
doubt, that they received the " direction and assistance " 
for which they prayed .^^ 

ni 

The Pilgrims had a whole line of questions to settle. So 
soon as they had disposed of one in a satisfactory way 
they were confronted by another. They had 
How obtain decided to go ; they had decided where they 
means to would go; but how reach their destination.'' 
carry out "j^j^g auspices and terms under which they 
their plan would make their brave venture of establish- 
ing new homes and planting churches and 
laying the foundations of a free state across the sea 
presented a problem vastly more difficult of solution than 
either of the others which they had considered. Where 
were the means to come from, and who would stand 
sponsor for the successful carrying out of an undertaking 
so formidable.'' 

There were two Virginia companies organized in 
England. One was called the London Company, the other 
the Plymouth — though the latter, like the former, did 
its business in London. Both received their charters 
from James I in 1606. Neither company prospered. The 
London Company became bankrupt in 1624, and was 
forced to close its books. The Plymouth Company held 
on until 1635 ; though for the last fifteen years of its 
existence it appears to have been merged into and known 
as The Council for New England. But while these com- 
panies were financial disappointments to their promoters 
and members, they were important intermediaries in the 
settlement of the English colonies. 



THE PILGRIMS 155 

As soon as it had been definitely decided to leave Leyden, 
which, as we have seen, was three years before the migra- 
tion took place, approaches were made to the London 
Company. The object in view in approaching this com- 
pany was twofold: first, to secure a patent, or lease, 
which would enable the colony to make their settlement 
under due legal authority; and second, to conciHate the 
favor of the king. There were good grounds for hoping 
to secure both of these ends. It was the business of the 
Company to further colonization. As was said in a pre- 
ceding paragraph, in association with the Company, or in 
close affiliation with those who were associated with the 
Company, there were certain " Great Persons " who might 
be expected, since they were avowed friends of the Sepa- 
ratists, to aid them in gaining their ends. These " Great 
Persons " were Sir Robert Naunton, secretary of state 
to James, and Sir Edwin Sandys, one of the best specimens 
of the best EngHshmen of his time. The agents sent over 
to conduct the business were John Carver and Robert 
Cushman. Others, hke Elder Brewster, had a hand in the 
affair ; but Carver and Cushman were the chief factors in 
conducting the negotiations. 

In both the particulars in which they had hoped to suc- 
ceed, the Pilgrims were disappointed. Naunton did his 
best " to move His Majesty, by a private mo- 
Outcome of tion, to give way to such a people, who could 
negotia- not so comfortably live under the government 
tions of another state, to enjoy their liberty of con- 

science under his gracious protection in Amer- 
ica; where they would endeavor the advancement of His 
Majesty's dominions, and the enlargement of the Gospel, 
by all due means." The king admitted that this " was a 
good and honest motion." When told that the immediate 
profits likely to come from the endeavor would be the prof- 
its arising from " fishing," he replied, with his ordinary 
asseveration, " so God have my soul ! 't is an honest trade ! 
It was the Apostle's own calhng." Up to this point the 
outlook was promising. But later, and when further 
pressed on the subject, the king informed his secretary 
that these apphcants must make their appeal to the 



156 THE PILGRIMS 

bishops of Canterbury and London. These bishops were 
George Abbot and John King. While Abbot was able, 
liberal-minded, kindly, and disposed to sympathize with 
the aims of Puritanism, and would have had, no doubt, 
the controlling voice on his side in any conference with the 
agents of the Pilgrims, yet the Pilgrims had had enough 
to do with bishops to make them distrustful of any help 
to be obtained from that source. Still their case was 
laid before the archbishop by some of their friends. It 
was of no use. Both as respects the head of the nation 
and the head of the Church, securing the favors sought 
*' proved," in the quaint, terse language of Bradford, " a 
harder piece of work than they took it for ; for though 
many means were used to bring it about, yet it could not 
be effected." As might have been expected, " this made a 
damp in the business, and caused some distraction." Yet 
sometliing was gained. For in sounding the mind of James, 
it was found " that he would connive at them, and not 
molest them ; provided they carried themselves peaceably ; 
but to allow, or tolerate them by his public authority, under 
his seal," he would not. This was something of an advance 
on the old platform of harrying them out of the kingdom 
if they refused to conform, and then arresting them if they 
attempted to leave. 

On this turn in affairs the Pilgrims through their agents 
applied more directly to the London Company. Practically 
nothing came of this application. The Company was found 
to be very desirous to have them go out under its auspices. 
A patent would be granted them with as ample privileges 
as they had, or could grant to any body of colonists. In 
addition to this the company stood ready " to give them 
the best furtherance they could." It was in vain. The 
business dragged on through almost two years. At length 
the promised patent was granted — granted not directly, 
but to an individual in trust for his associates ; but this 
patent was never used. It came too late. It came when 
the London Company was nearly worn out with working 
at cross-purposes and quarrels, and when it had no funds 
to use in aid of transportation. 



THE PILGRIMS 157 



IV 

Meanwhile the thoughts of the Pilgrims were turned in 
another direction. In the midst of their perplexities, when 

their hopes of help in influential quarters were 
Solicita- all failing them and discouraging accounts of 
tions and i\yQ [\i success of other companies who were 
offers by trying to make settlements in the New World 
the Dutch were reaching them, " some Dutchmen made 

them fair offers about going with them." The 
industry, the thrift, the self-respect, the sturdy honesty, 
the faith in God, the mutual love and peaceableness of these 
English exiles, had made a deep impression on the Dutch; 
and those of the people who were interested in trade, or in 
the extension of the territorial boundaries of the nation, 
knew well what a stable and promising element these men 
and women would furnish to any colony. Their overtures 
were negatived, though what might have come from them 
under further prosecution can only be conjectured; but as 
it was, attempts to draw the Pilgrims into a settlement 
under Dutch auspices came to an abrupt ending by the 
opening of a door in another direction. 



Thomas Weston was a " Merchant of London." He 
appears to have been well acquainted with some of the 

leading members of the Leyden church. Brad- 
Thomas fQj.(j speaks of him as one who had rendered 
Weston them assistance in some of their previous 
and the starts. He was an enterprising rascal ; and in 
Merchant consequence of his rascaHty he died a poor, 
Adven- despised, and miserable wretch. But at this 
turers time he talked bravely, and had the confidence 

of Robinson and his associates. He appeared 
on the scene at Leyden while the negotiations with the 
Dutch were still in hand. At his instance these negotiations 
were broken off, and an entirely new plan of migration was 



158 THE PILGRIMS 

formulated. Weston and his friends among the merchants 
would aid the exiles, so he gave them to understand, to any 
extent necessary to the carrying out of their project of 
removal. Using their own means so far as they might, 
they were to make ready for the voyage, " and neither 
fear want of shipping nor money ; for what they wanted 
should be provided." The offer was accepted. This was 
probably in February of 1620; and was what had come 
to pass after nearly three years of negotiations. 

Who were the " friends " of Weston on whose backing 
he so confidently counted.-^ They were the Adventurers. 
Who again were the Adventurers ? We are indebted to the 
'* Letter Book " of Bradford for their names, or the names 
of most of them ; and to Captain John Smith's " Gen- 
eral History," published in 1624, for such particulars as 
are available concerning them. It would appear that 
Weston had brought them together and secured their co- 
operation in this enterprise of transporting the Pilgrims 
to the shores of America. In number they were about sev- 
enty. Some of them were " Gentlemen ; some, merchants ; 
some, handicraftsmen." They were not a corporation, 
but a body bound together by voluntary consent, with- 
out constraint or penalty, " whose aim was to do good and 
plant religion." Some of them had large estates and much 
interest in the undertaking. Others had less wealth and 
less willingness to make advances. It is altogether probable 
that a majority of the body were chiefly concerned with the 
financial outcome of the venture. Still a sum by no means 
insignificant was invested in this movement of the adven- 
turers. According to Smith, inside of three years they 
had put £7000 into the general stock. That reduced 
to dollars, and to the purchasing power of dollars at the 
present time, would not be less than ^140,000. These 
■were the men, with Weston at their head, who had come to 
the rescue, and were to further the Pilgrims in their great 
historic migration. 



THE PILGRIMS 159 



VI 

At once, and while Weston was still in Leyden, articles 
of agreement were drawn up and the undertaking was set 
in motion. The basis of this enterprise was 
Articles of that of a joint stock company. Shares were 
agreement ten pounds each. An adventurer who contrib- 
between uted ten pounds to the common treasury was 

the Pil- entitled to one share, and an additional share 

grims and fgj. g^ch ten pounds invested. Each colonist, 
Adven- ^}^q ^g^g sixteen years of age or upward, was 

turers rated at ten pounds, and received one share of 

the stock. A colonist who made provision for 
himself to the amount of ten pounds was given an addi- 
tional share. There were minor details and provisions 
for contingencies ; but the general principle on which the 
undertaking on its business side was to be operated was as 
here stated. The partnership thus instituted, " except some 
unexpected impediment " should " cause the whole com- 
pany to agree otherwise," was to continue seven years ; and 
then was to come the division of whatever had been accumu- 
lated. 

It is not to be questioned that the terms of the agreement 
are expressed in a way to create doubt of their exact mean- 
ing. But the ruling idea of it was men and means, colo- 
nists and capital, in an even balance. The final division was 
to be in two parts — one-half to go to the Adventurers 
and one-half to the colonists ; and each owner of stock 
was to receive from the half in which he had ownership 
according to the number of his shares. After reaching this 
conclusion by an independent study of the transaction, it 
was gratifying to find the contention supported by Dr. 
Ames, who says : " Their respective bodies " were " associ- 
ated as but two partners in an equal copartnership, the 
interests of the respective partners being (probably) held 
upon differing bases — contrary to the commonly pub- 
lished and accepted views." 

In the original agreement — the agreement which was 
made and assented to by the Pilgrims before they left 



160 THE PILGRIMS 

Leyden, and under the terms of which they decided to go 
forward, there were two wise and humane provisions made 
for the benefit and encouragement of the colonists. First, 
it was stipulated that " the houses, and lands improved, 
especially gardens and home-lots, should remain undivided," 
and belong exclusively to the colonists. Second, it was 
stipulated that the colonists, " especially such as had 
famihes," should have two days in a week for their own 
private employment. This was " for the more comfort 
of themselves and their families." 

In justification of the propriety and advantage of these 
stipulations, Robinson remarks : " Let this especially be 
borne in mind, that the greatest part of the colony is hke 
to be employed constantly, not upon dressing their particu- 
lar land and building homes, but upon fishing, trading, etc. 
So as the land and house will be but a trifle for advantage 
to the Adventurers, and yet the division of it a great dis- 
couragement to the Planters, who would with singular care 
make it comfortable with borrowed hours from their sleep. 
The same considerations of common employment constantly 
by the most is a good reason not to have the two days in a 
week denied the few Planters for private use, which yet is 
subordinate to the common good. Consider also how much 
unfit that you and your hke must serve a new apprentice- 
ship of seven years, and not a day's freedom from task." 



VII 

Here, in order to give unity and completeness to the 
account of the transaction with which we are now dealing, 
it seems better to anticipate a modification in 
Dishearten- ^g plan just given which was made at the last 
ing change moment, and of which the colonists knew noth- 
in the ar- jjjg until they reached Southampton, 
tides of With the liberal agreement, originally en- 

agreement tered into and already stated, some of the more 
avaricious of the Adventurers became dissatis- 
fied, and when the Pilgrims had gone too far to back out, 
save at serious loss to no small numbers of them, and humili- 



THE PILGRIMS 161 

ating disaster to their cause, quite a contingent of the 
moneyed men of the enterprise balked, and declared that the 
stipulation yielded too much to the colonists, and must be 
changed to allow all incomes and properties to go to swell 
the common possessions, or they would withhold payment 
for their stock and have nothing more to do with the under- 
taking. Alarmed by these threats, and solicitous, so he 
claimed, lest the whole movement should come to naught, 
Cushman gave in, and on his own responsibility consented 
to an alteration in the articles of agreement in the two 
particulars specified. Under the modified articles, the 
colonists were not to have the " two days in a week for their 
own private employment " on which they had set their 
hearts. Moreover " all profits and benefits " which were 
obtained by the " trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, 
or any other means " of any of the colonists were to be made 
over to the common stock. This swallowed up the houses 
which they had hoped to build and occupy and call their 
own, and the little garden-plots which in imagination they 
had seen enriching and beautifying their rude homes in the 
wilderness. 

It is no wonder that this change in the terms of the 
agreement occasioned disappointment, grief, and even 
anger; and that it led to the interchange of language 
which it is charitable to call simply sharp. The wonder 
would be, had there been no hot indignation on learning 
these facts. It was indeed a hard bargain, and it was sub- 
mitted to by the Pilgrims because there was no other way 
in which they could carry out their high and valiant pur- 
pose. But while hard, it is difficult to see what other 
rational course was open to Cushman. He had to deal with 
business men, on what business men are fond of calling a 
business basis ; and he saw clearly that it was better to go 
under hard conditions than not to go at all. If, as has been 
said in a previous chapter, Cushman is to be blamed for 
what he did, it is nevertheless clear that he was used of 
God for the fulfilling of a great design. 

The blame lies at another door. Thomas Weston was 
both the mover and the marplot in this affair of the part- 
nership between the London Merchants and the Leyden 

11 



162 THE PILGRIMS 

Separatists. If indignation is to be felt towards anybody 
this selfish schemer should be the object of it. In a letter 
to Carver and Cushman, when the outlook seemed desperate, 
Fuller, Winslow, Bradford, and Allerton expressed their 
latent distrust of Weston by using this expression : " in 
whom we hope we are not deceived." In this communication 
these men affirm that it was at his suggestion they entered 
on the undertaking of going to America, and in full assur- 
ance that if he had not seen means of finishing the business 
he would not have begun it ; and they hope that in their ex- 
tremity he will so far help that their confidence in him may 
be justified. Alas for their expectations! Alas, too, that 
there will be further occasion for speaking of this Weston ! 
Meantime to give effect to these negotiations and carry 
out their plans, two ships had been secured for the trans- 
portation of passengers and goods across the 
Ships water. One was the Mayflower which had been 

secured hired for the voyage. The other was the 

Speedwell which had been purchased, and was 
to remain and be at the service of the colonists when they 
had become established in their new home. It was a wise 
scheme, but destined not to be realized. 



VIII 

Incidentally, and at the outset of the negotiations, whose 
story has now been told, views and characteristics were 

brought out which were greatly to the credit 
Side-lights Qf \\^q Pilgrims, and which ought to magnify 
thrown on them evermore in the estimation of posterity, 
the Pil- First, there was a document drawn up by 

grims them, called the Seven Articles, in which the 

faith and form of government of the Leyden 
church were set forth in explicit statements. The object 
of these articles was to reduce to lowest terms consistent 
with honesty the differences between themselves and the 
Church of England. This, again, was to satisfy the more 
reasonable and kindly of the officials and adherents of the 
king, and hkewise to soften the heart of the king himself. 



THE PILGRIMS 163 

These articles were sent by the Leyden church to the 
Privy Council of England. For while the agents of the 
Pilgrims were making every effort possible to interest the 
London Company in their behalf, at the same time, and 
most likely through all the negotiations, such influence as 
they could command was brought to bear on the council to 
further their aims. It has already been shown how Naun- 
ton worked for them. 

In these articles complete assent was avowed to the 
Confession of Faith of the Church of England ; frank 
acknowledgment was made of the good effects of these 
doctrines as held and taught " to the begetting of saving 
faith in thousands in the land," and the desire was ex- 
pressed " to keep spiritual communion " with both " Con- 
formists and Reformists," as with brethren ; thorough-going 
loyalty was declared to the king; the right of the king to 
appoint bishops was admitted; so, too, the authority of 
bishops, so far as this authority came to them from His 
Majesty, was admitted; that " no Synod, Classes, Convo- 
cation, or Assembly of Ecclesiastical Officers, possessed any 
power or authority," save as imparted to them by the 
magistrate ; and lastly, a declaration of intent " to give 
to all Superiors due honor, to preserve the unity of the 
Spirit with all that fear God, and to have peace with all 
men," in so far as it was in their power. These articles 
carried the signatures of John Robinson and William 
Brewster ; and the contents of them gave great satisfaction 
to all friends of the Leyden church. 

In these articles it will be observed that nothing is said 
about the setting apart of men to the ministry. Critical 
eyes noticed this omission. But nothing could have induced 
these conscientious and determined Separatists to locate 
the authority for making ministers anywhere else than in 
the Church. Neither pope nor potentate might assume 
this sacred prerogative. They held that the call to the 
ministry comes from God, but that the acknowledgment 
and ratification of this call resides in the Church. 

Bearing date a few weeks later, there was another com- 
munication, signed by the same leaders, Robinson and 
Brewster, called by the writers " instances of inducement," 



164 THE PILGRIMS 

in which their faith, their habits, their motives, and their 
fitness for such an enterprise as the one on which they hoped 
soon to enter, were declared to Sir Edwin Sandys in the 
frankness and love which the friendship of this large-souled 
man had inspired in their breasts. It is important to 
reproduce these statements entire and just as they have 
come to us ; for here we have thoughts which are apples of 
gold in words which are baskets of silver. 

" First, we verily believe and trust the Lord is with 
us ; unto whom, and whose service, we have given our- 
selves in many trials ; and that He will graciously pros- 
per our endeavor, according to the simphcity of our hearts 
therein. 

" Secondly, we are well weaned from the delicate milk of 
our mother country ; and inured to the difficulties of a 
strange and hard land ; which yet, in great part, we have 
by patience overcome. 

" Thirdly, the people are, for the body of them, indus- 
trious and frugal, we think we may safely say, as any 
company of people in the world. 

" Fourthly, we are knit together as a body, in a most 
strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord ; of the 
violation whereof we make great conscience ; and by virtue 
whereof, we do hold ourselves strictly tied to all love of 
each other's good, and of the whole, by every one ; and so 
mutually. 

" Lastly, it is not with us as with other men whom small 
things can discourage, or small discontentments cause to 
wish themselves at home again. We know our Entertainment 
in England, and in Holland. We shall much prejudice 
both our arts and means by removal. If we should be driven 
to return, we should not hope to recover our present helps 
and comforts ; neither indeed look ever, for ourselves, to 
attain unto the like in any other place, during our hves; 
which are now drawing towards their periods." 

Neither soundness of faith, nor pure and devoted lives, 
nor loyalty to the sovereign, nor avowals the most earnest 
and sincere of love for their native land, nor loftiest Chris- 
tian aims, nor all of them combined, availed to secure to 
these men the simple privileges which they sought. God 



THE PILGRIMS 165 

had something better for them, and a liigher place in the 
reverence and affection of the generations which were to 
follow, than the favor which could come to them through 
the patronage of bishops and kings. In the design of a 
beneficent Providence it was meant that all the credit of 
their great achievement should go, not to those who sat 
in the high places of the earth and exercised authority and 
wielded the mighty power of church and state, but to these 
exiles themselves. 

IX 

At length the time came when preliminary points had all 
been settled. Not far from three full years had been con- 
sumed in conferences and negotiations. It was a long and 
tedious business, with many ins and outs to it, and many 
disheartening setbacks — this getting ready to go. Often 
it looked as if all their attempts were to be thwarted and 
their hopes brought to naught. It was not so to be. They 
were to make their venture and at the same time make 
a glorious chapter in human history. 

But who were to go .'' Who were to be the advance agents 
of this new movement in the progress of mankind? Not 
all could leave. Some, we may well suppose, 
Who were were in no physical condition for the undertak- 
to emi- jj,g Some who were willing to join in the 

grate migration could not get ready in time. Means 

were limited, and only a part of the company 
could be provided with transportation at that time. No one 
was constrained to go, but only those who voluntarily 
chose to do so joined in the migration. Both sections of 
the company, those who remained and those who went, de- 
sired to have their beloved pastor with them ; but it seems 
to have been mutually agreed that he was to identify him- 
self with the larger body ; and as those who stayed were 
more than those who went, Robinson, " who for other rea- 
sons could not then well go," kept on at Leyden. But he 
remained in hope — in hope that he, too, in a httle while 
might follow on and join those who had gone before. It 
was a hope never to be realized. In less than five years 



166 THE PILGRIMS 

from this historic midsummer when the first instalment of 
migrating Pilgrims set their faces westward, Robinson was 
not, for God had taken him. This arrangement made it 
expedient, if not necessary, for Brewster to go. 

How many left Leyden and embarked on the Speedwell at 
Delfshaven for Southampton is not quite clear. At any 
rate the authorities differ in their estimates. 
Number j)j._ Ames publishes a list of sixty-six of the 

who left Leyden people whom he thinks must have been 
Leyden q^ board the Speedwell when she left Delfs- 

haven. But in setting forth the reasons for 
his conclusions in each individual case, the word " proba- 
ble " or " probably," has to appear so frequently that one 
rises from the examination quite uncertain in his mind. Yet 
he cannot be far out of the way ; for the numbers must have 
been considerable, or Winslow would not have been justified 
in saying that " the difference " between the number of 
those who went and those who remained " was not great." 
The reference by Winslow was made no doubt on the basis 
of the membership of the church; and tiiis was not large. 
But Brewster — beyond question — Bradford, Winslow, 
Fuller, Howland, and Standish, were on the vessel ; and 
when these men were weighed in the balances of what they 
were to do in the years to come, they made a large party. 



On the day before the departure was to take place the 
church came together, and spent the hours from morning 

till night in communion and fasting and 
A tender prayer. It is better, however, to let those who 
religious were sharers in these sacred experiences tell 
service i\^q story of both the departures — this from 

Leyden and the subsequent one from Delfs- 
haven. This is the account given by Bradford : " So being 
ready to depart, they had a day of solemn humiliation, 
their pastor taking his text from Ezra 8. 21 And there at 
the river, hy Ahava, I proclaimed a fast, that we might 
humble ourselves before our God, and seek of Him a right 



THE PILGRIMS 167 

•way for us, and for our children, and for all our substance. 
Upon which he spent a good part of the day very profitably, 
and suitably to their present occasion. The rest of the time 
was spent in pouring out prayers to the Lord with great 
fervency, mixed with abundance of tears." 

What a day this must have been ! How it would linger 
— an inspiring and sanctifying influence — in the mem- 
ory of all who had any part in its sacred privileges ! How 
the words of their beloved pastor, as intelligently and ten- 
derly he expounded to them the passage which sets forth 
the duty of God's people to humble their souls and seek from 
on high the right way for their own walking and for the 
walking of their children, must have melted into their 
souls, and become a vital portion of their lives ! It was a 
wonderful season of fellowship with God and with each 
other. It is easy to imagine that as their fervent supplica- 
tions were offered, and their Psalms were sung, and their 
earnest expressions of friendship and love were exchanged, 
the thoughts of many must have run back to the scenes of 
the upper chamber when our Lord and his disciples were 
together for the last time before the crucifixion. 

Twenty-four miles from Leyden, not as the bird flies, 
but by lines of travel, is the seaport of Delfshaven. Here 

lay the Speedwell. This was a craft of sixty 
Fellowship tons' burden. Thither, on the day following 
at Delfs- the (j^y of conference and fasting and prayer, 
haven the httle band of Pilgrims, who were to take 

passage in the Speedwell for Southampton, 
there to join the Mayflower, took their journey. Most of 
their friends and associates accompanied them to the place 
of embarkation. 

" So," says Bradford, continuing the narrative, " they 
left the goodly and pleasant city, which had been their 
resting-place near twelve years ; but they knew they were 
pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lift up 
their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country and quieted 
their spirits. When they came to the place they found 
the ship and all things ready ; and such of their friends as 
could not come with them followed after them, and sundry 
also came from Amsterdam to see them shipped and to take 



168 THE PILGRIMS 

their leave of them. That night was spent with little sleep 
by the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian 
discourse and other real expressions of true Christian love. 
The next day, the wind being fair, they went aboard, and 
their friends with them where truly doleful was the sight 
of that sad and mournful parting; to see what sighs and 
sobs and prayers did sound amongst them, what tears did 
gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each heart ; 
that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the quay 
as spectators, could not refrain from tears. Yet com- 
fortable and sweet it was to see such lively and true expres- 
sions of dear and unfeigned love. But the tide — which 
stays for no man — calling them away that were thus loath 
to depart, their reverend pastor falling down on his knees — 
and they all with him — with watery cheeks commended 
them with most fervent prayers to the Lord and his bless- 
ing. And then with mutual embraces and many tears, 
they took their leaves one of another ; which proved to be 
the last leave to many of them." 

Winslow, in his " Brief Narration " has also described 
the scene of this historic departure. His account is short ; 
but he adds one or two touches to the picture which both 
freshen the sense of its reality and increase the vividness 
of its coloring. " And after prayer performed by our 
pastor, where a flood of tears was poured out ; they ac- 
companied us to the ship ; but were not able to speak one 
to another, for the abundance of sorrow to part. But we 
only going aboard, the ship lying to the key, and ready to 
set sail ; the wind being fair, we gave them a volley of small 
shot, and three pieces of ordnance ; and so lifting up our 
hearts for each other to the Lord our God, we departed 
and found His presence with us, in the midst of our mani- 
fold straits He carried us through." 




a, S 



c S 






IX 

CROSSING THE OCEAN 



All Englishmen must feel pride in, and cherish as a precious possession, 
the memory of men who were true to their consciences, let the cost be what 
it might, and who pursued their aim undaunted, though the difficulties were 
well-nigh overwhelming. — G. Cuthbert Blaxland. 

Their faults were those of their age, and the rudeness of the cultm-e of 
many of them ; their virtues were their own — such as they were in native 
worth, and such as God's grace, mainly in their severe discipline of furnace, 
anvil and sledge by which the Divine hand has been wont to forge its most 
useful implements and weapons for the service of earth, had made ihem. 

Henry Martyn Dexter. 

Brave souls were they 

Who dared embark, 
And sail away 

Into the dark 
And pathless night. 

Brave souls and great ! 

They crossed the sea 
To found a state 

Where men were free 
Forevermore ! 

Rev. J. P. Trowbridge. 

This is the sohtary number, who, for an undefiled conscience, and the 
love of pure Christianity, first left their pleasant and native land, and en- 
countered all the toils and hazards of a tumultuous ocean, in search of some 
uncultivated region in North Virginia where they might quietly enjoy their 
rehgious Uberties, and transmit them to posterity. — Thomas Prince. 

No home for these ! too well they knew 
The mitred king behind the throne; 
The sails were set, the pennons flew. 
And westward ho ! for worlds unknown. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



IX 
CROSSING THE OCEAN 

SOUTHAMPTON was reached on the fourth day, 
probably, after leaving Delfshaven. Nothing worthy 
of note occurred on the passage from the Dutch to 
the English port. Bradford simply says of it : " Thus 
hoisting sail, with a prosperous wind, they came in short 
time to Southampton, where they found the bigger ship " 
— the Mayflower — " come from London, lying ready, 
with all the rest of the Company." On arriving at the 
landing there were " joyful welcomes and mutual congrat- 
ulations," and " other friendly entertainments." 

Beyond this, too, one cannot help feeling that the hearts 
of these exiles, shut out as the most of them had been for 
twelve long years from the sight of their native land, must 
have thrilled with a peculiar gladness as they set foot on 
the shores of England. The thought of the tyranny of 
the rulers — ecclesiastical and civil — which had driven 
them forth, and of the losses and hardships they had been 
forced to endure, would distress them; but to walk once 
more under English skies and on English soil, and to hear 
their mother tongue in the streets, and to look on people 
whose dress and manners had been so familiar to them in 
years gone by, would be sure to afford them a strange 
pleasure, albeit a pleasure mixed with melancholy. 



But something besides warm greetings and friendly at- 
tentions, and setting foot once more on the soil of their 
native land, awaited the Pilgrims on their reaching South- 



172 rilE riLGRIMS 

ainptou. Thov had to out-'ouutor sovoro disappointmoTits. 
to !5ubmit to vexatious dolnvjs. and to sutYor embarrassing 
losses. As has been related in a preeedini^j 
Disappoint- chapter, the agreement between the Pilgrims 
nient. .j^^j tj^^ Adventurers under whieh the migra- 

delay :vnd ^{^i,^ ^va-s etVeetevl. on demand of son\e of the 
^'^*® moneve<.i men who were baeking the undertak- 

ing, and by consent of Cushman, was chaiigevl 
in some very important pirtieulars. This change was 
contrary to exphcit orders given to Cushnu-\i\ by the 
Pilgrims; ai\d it was not known to them until they ar- 
rived at Southampton. A new turn like this given to 
atTairs disturber! the whole party. The leaders refused to 
ratify the moditieti articles, and saiknl without doing so. 

The irritation was increase^i by the presence and arro- 
gant behavior of Weston, ^'ery naturally he had come 
down from London to see the colonists otY. but he was 
there not so much to express a sympathetic interest iu 
their welfare as to secure their signatures to the contract 
which had bixm changed to their disadvantage. When he 
found it was impossible to get the written consent of these 
men to the modified articles of agreen\ent. he became top- 
lofty and indignant. " lie was nuich otTended. and told 
tlicm they must look to stand on their own legs." Tliis 
wa* his parting shot, a*; he turned on his heel and went 
back to London. 

This disagreement brought delay and not a little em- 
Ikvrrassiiient. Expenses had already run up far beyond 
their calculations. The attitude of Weston and some of 
the other merchants whose interests in the colony were 
mercenary rather than sympathetic, left the Pilgrims in 
sore straits for funds with which to prosecute their jour- 
ney. Each day that they lingered in port diminisheil their 
resources and added to their burdens. Something like a 
hundreil pounds in addition to what they had was netxied 
" to clear things at their going away." With Weston, the 
prime mover in this scheme of migration, and those of his 
ilk offendeii, there w.^s no one to whom the distressed com- 
pany could turn for help. ** So they were forced to sell off 
some of their provisions to stop this gap." They sold so 



THE PILGRIMS 173 

much, in fact, that they had scarcely " any butter " left, 
" no oil," " not a sole to mend a shoe," " nor every man a 
sword to his side, wanting many muskets," " much armor," 
and other things essential to their comfort and defense. 



II 

At length, however, difficulties had been overcome, differ- 
ences had been smoothed over if not satisfactorily adjusted, 
the two ships had been loaded and put in trim 
Eeady to for sea, the passengers had been assigned to 
^^^^ the vessels in which they were to sail, " a Gov- 

ernor and two or three assistants for each 
ship had been chosen, to order the people by the way, and 
see to the disposing of their provisions, and such like," 
and all things were in readiness for the voyage. There 
were no such scenes to be witnessed, and no such ceremonies 
of farewell in connection with the going away from South- 
ampton as there had been back at Delfshaven. There were 
no such waitings and sobbings, no such heart-breaking inter- 
views, no such " salt-dropping dews of vehement affection," 
as, according to Johnson in his " Wonder-Working Provi- 
dence," signalized the departure from this same port a 
few years later of a large company of the Puritans when 
they " shipped for the service of Christ in the Western 
World." 

Ill 

But in the midst of these final preparations, and when 
near to the hour of sailing, there was pause for a service 

which was at once touching and memorable. 
Robinson's j^- ^-g^g i\^q reading of a letter from their be- 
letter loved pastor. This letter had followed the 

Pilgrims from Leyden, and was written by 
Robinson out of a full heart and in the spirit, not only of 
a fatherly love, but of a profound wisdom, and it was 
designed, no doubt, to be read at precisely the place and 
time selected for its reading. 



174 THE PILGRIMS 

In this letter Robinson declared his tender love for his 
migrating brethren, and assured them how willingly he 
would have borne with them his part in this first brunt had 
he not been held back by strong necessity. Proceeding then 
to the points of counsel which he thought it fitting for him 
to communicate to them, he besought these " Loving Chris- 
tian Friends " day by day to renew their repentance to- 
ward God in order that they might have great " security 
and peace in all dangers, sweet comforts in all distresses, 
with happy deliverance from all evil whether in life or in 
death." He urged them, in addition to this " heavenly 
peace with God and their own consciences," " carefully to 
provide peace with all men," so far as they might, " espe- 
cially with " their " associates," To this end he assured 
them that " watchfulness must be had " that they " neither 
in themselves" should " give," " nor easily take offence, 
being given by others." He reminded them that many of 
them were strangers one to another. The Leyden brethren 
might be expected to know each other well; but these 
brethren who had sojourned at Leyden for years were 
joined at Southampton by others of like precious faith who 
had never left England ; and it might well be thought that 
the two parties would need to exercise not a little patience 
with each other, if they were to get along smoothly to- 
gether. Because they were strangers, and because their 
" intended course of civil community " would " minister 
continual occasion of offense, and be as fuel for that fire," 
he warned them that they must not fail in the exercise of 
" brotherly forbearance." He added the injunction that 
in their " common employments " they were to have a 
common thought for " the general good," and to avoid as 
" a deadly plague " of both their " common and special 
comfort " all plotting for individual advantage. In con- 
clusion, he charged them, that inasmuch as in the " body 
politic," which they were to become, they had no " persons 
of special eminence above the rest," they must elect to 
office only such men as would " entirely love and promote 
the common good," and when such men were duly elected, 
then all the members of the "body pohtic " must join in 
*' yielding unto them all due honor and obedience in their 



THE PILGRIMS 175 

lawful administrations." For however ordinary a person 
might be before his election to office, after election, so he 
taught them, he became a minister of God for good to the 
people; and the power and authority of the magistrate 
must be recognized. 

Bradford called this a " large " letter. It is indeed in 
more senses than one; and the good governor might well 
add that it was " fruitful in itself, and suitable to their 
occasion." It is no surprise to us that, when read, it " had 
good acceptation with all, and after fruit with many." 

About the fifteenth of August, or somewhat more than 
three weeks after leaving Delfshaven, the two companies 
in the two ships said farewell to native land and set their 
sad but determined faces westward. 

IV 

This, after all, was not to be their final leave-taking. 
Through the exercise of the perilous skill by which cow- 
ardly and treacherous men come to know so 
Further ^gj} }^q^ j^qj- ^q ^q what they do not wish to 

hindrances ^q^ certain defects in the Speedwell were used 
and disap- practically to force the ship to spring a leak, 
pointments xhe vessel, while still in Holland waters, 
had been overmasted ; and consequently all 
that the " cunning rascal," the characterization which 
Arber gives to Captain Reynolds, had to do when he found 
this out was " to clap on, all possible sail," and this would 
be sure to bring about the result desired. This is Brad- 
ford's explanation of the disaster : " The leakiness of this 
ship was partly by her being overmasted and too much 
pressed with sails." 

This, however, is not the whole story. It will be ob- 
served that Bradford says " partly " — it was " partly 
by her being overmasted." There was a treachery in the 
case worse than this. Not only was the vessel " over- 
masted," but she was tampered with and helped to a leak 
which simple overmasting would hardly have caused. In 
a letter written at Dartmouth, after the ship had put 
back to that port, and while they were still lying in the 



176 THE PILGRIMS 

dock waiting for the completion of repairs on the Speed- 
well^ Cushman says : " We put in here to trim her ; and 
I think, as others also, if we had stayed at sea but three 
or four hours more she would have sunk right down. And 
though she was twice trimmed at Hampton, yet now she 
is open and leaky as a sieve ; and there was a board a man 
might have pulled off with his fingers, two feet long, where 
the water came in as at a mole hole." It is true that Cush- 
man was sick, discouraged, and in every way out of sorts 
when these words were penned ; but he says explicitly that 
there was an opening in the side of the ship through which 
the water was coming in as through " a sieve," or " at a 
mole hole." 

If there is still doubt in any mind on this matter, here 
is a further statement made by Bradford in close connec- 
tion with his other statement just quoted: "But more 
especially, by the cunning and deceit of the master and 
his company, who were hired to stay a whole year in the 
country, and now fancying dislike and fearing want of 
victuals, they plotted this stratagem to free themselves ; 
as afterwards was known and by some of them confessed." 

There was evidently something more than " overmast- 
ing " to be put to the credit of the " rascality " of Captain 
Reynolds. At any rate, precious time and fair winds were 
lost, and much additional expense was incurred, by this 
misfortune. But after not less than eleven days spent in 
making repairs and getting ready to sail once more, 
anchors were weighed and the ships put out to sea. It 
must have been with not a little misgiving on the part of 
those of the company who knew the causes of the delay, 
and who, in the circumstances, could not have quieted their 
uncomfortable suspicions. 

Appearances, however, were favorable. This time it 
really looked as if this goodly fellowship of men and 
women were to be permitted to reach their destination 
without further hindrance, save such as might arise from 
adverse winds and baffling waves. After proceeding on 
their way a full three hundred miles, the convenient leak 
came to the rescue of those who had no heart for the un- 
dertaking, and there was another return. 



THE PILGRIMS 177 

It was Plymouth in England which was to have the 
unique honor of saying the last good-bye and Godspeed to 
a devoted band who were to make Plymouth in America 
" holy ground " for all coming time. 



This fresh mishap occasioned a detention of another 
precious fortnight. Still this return brought some com- 
pensation to the oft -baffled exiles ; for as we 
OfE at last are told in the " Journal," they were " kindly 
entertained and courteously used by divers 
friends " who dwelt at Plymouth. Sympath}'^, apprecia- 
tion, hospitaHty and words of encouragement from per- 
sons of mind and heart like their own must have meant 
much in the distressing circumstances in which they were. 
The Speedwell was abandoned. As much of her cargo as 
seemed advisable was transferred to her worthier consort. 
The timid and disheartened of the party were permitted to 
withdraw. The Mat/flower, with a passenger list of one 
hundred and two, again pointed her prow to the New 
World. This was the third attempt, made almost two try- 
ing months after the embarkation at Delfshaven. But 
spreading their canvas to the breeze, and committing them- 
selves and all they held dear to the God who rules on the 
waters as on the land, and who guides the destinies of indi- 
viduals and nations alike, these sturdy souls pressed on over 
the billowy seas and through tempests fierce and wild, 
towards troubles they could not have foreseen, and a glory 
surpassing all the anticipations of the most extravagant 
enthusiasm. 

VI 

Here, leaving our good ship for a while to plow her way 
through stormy waters to her destined haven, it is in place 
to note some of the accessions which were made to the 
colony on reaching England. 

Some of these were poor sticks — such stuff as rascals 

12 



178 THE PILGRIMS 

rather than saints are made of. In speaking of John 
BiUington, who, in a httle less than ten years after the 

landing of the Pilgrims, was tried and exe- 
Accessions cuted for the murder of John Newcomen, or 
to the Newcomin as he is called in the History, Brad- 

colony on ford says : " He and some of his had been often 
reaching punished for miscarriages before, being one 
England of the profanest families amongst them. They 

came from London, and I know not by what 
friends shuffled into their company." This " profanest 
family " consisted of the husband, wife, and two sons. Of 
other accessions, two, Trevor and Ely, were hired sailors, 
and went back to England at the end of their engagement. 
Edward Dotey and Edward Lister came in the service of 
Stephen Hopkins. To these two young bloods belongs 
the distinction of having been the first and last couple 
in the Plymouth Colony to fight a duel. Each was slightly 
wounded; but both were punished by sentence that their 
heads and feet should be tied together, and that they should 
be constrained to lie in this ignominious position, without 
food or drink, for twenty-four hours. A very little of this 
medicine was enough to cool their hot heads ; and their 
pathetic pleadings for pardon, and their solemn promises 
to do better in the future, softened the hearts of the au- 
thorities, and the rest of the severe penalty was remitted. 
Lister left the colony and died early. Dotey never got 
over his fiery temper ; but he became an energetic and 
thrifty citizen, and lived on until 1655. James Otis, who 
seems to have reproduced some of his characteristics, traced 
his ancestry back to Dotey. Besides these, there were 
Prower, Langemore, and Robert Carter, who were enrolled 
as " servants," and who died early. 

There were others of more distinction, or who, if they 
were not in the forefront at the outset, came, in the course 
of time, to be of great importance to the colony. Four of 
these call for special mention. 

Christopher Martin was from Billerica in Essex. He 
was supposed to have been about forty years of age at the 
time of his connection with the Pilgrims. He was one of 



THE PILGRIMS 179 

the agents appointed especially, it is believed, to represent 
the English contingent of the Pilgrim company, and to 

act in consort with Weston, Cushman, and 
Martin Carver, who conducted the negotiations with 

the Adventurers. He was himself an Adven- 
turer. At a later date, these other Adventurers, Collier, 
Hatherly, and Thomas, joined the colony ; but Martin and 
MuUins are the only Adventurers who sailed in the May- 
flower. He was made treasurer of the company, and thus 
was charged with the duty of receiving and paying out 
money in connection with the migration, and keeping an 
accurate account of all business transactions. He was 
also elected " Governor " of the ship. This array of facts 
goes to show in what esteem he was held by a majority of 
his associates up to the time of the final sailing of the 
Mayflower. At the last moment, however, serious dissatis- 
faction with the man and his methods cropped out. He 
was deposed from his governorship and remanded to a 
subordinate place. What was the trouble.'' Dr. Azel 
Ames in his valuable treatise, " The Mayflower — Her 
Log," makes short work in answering this question. He 
hardly ever mentions his name without expressing an 
opinion of him which is by no means flattering. He opens 
on him by saying : " He was no credit to the Company, 
and his early death probably prevented much vexation." 
He follows this up by declaring that " he seems to have 
been at all times a self-conceited, arrogant, and unsatis- 
factory man." For substance, these statements are no 
doubt true. The man was hot-headed, impatient of oppo- 
sition and restraint, and most likely fond of having his own 
way. But, to say nothing of Weston, was Cushman a 
model of patience.? " If I speak to him," so Cushman 
complained of Martin, " he flies in my face." But with 
all his excellences could not Cushman show heat on oc- 
casion and strike back.'' When one thinks of the quick 
tempers of Weston and Cushman and Martin, and the 
delicacy of the business they had to transact, and the 
many difficulties under which they all labored, one can but 
feel an increased admiration for Carver, who had to meet 
it all, and yet see that the enterprise was not wrecked by 



180 THE PILGRIMS 

the jealousies and squabbles of the agents. But Martin 
was not so bad a man as Dr. Ames represents him. He 
may have been hard to get along with; not so careful 
as he ought to have been in his bookkeeping; far from 
conciliatory ; and overbearing in his assertions of author- 
ity. Unquestionably he was. But he had principles, and 
he was ready to stand by them. He withstood ecclesias- 
tical authorities, " cost what it might." He threw himself 
heart and soul into the Pilgrim cause. He staked his 
Hfe and his all on the issue. What he might have been 
had his hfe been spared can be only conjectured. The 
end, however, came early. He himself, his wife, and his 
two servants, Prower and Langemore — the whole house- 
hold — " died in the first sickness." He went hence from 
the Mayflower in less than a month after the landing at 
Plymouth. 

William Mullins, as recent investigations have shown, 
was from Dorking, in Surrey, near London. He was a 
tradesman by occupation. He was one of the 
Mullins most trustworthy and devoted of the Adven- 

turers. His wealth has been said to have been 
considerable, and he was one of the heaviest subscribers 
to the fund of the Adventurers' Company. His investment 
in the enterprise is said to have been five hundred pounds. 
But his career was a brief one. In a httle more than two 
months after reaching Plymouth, he passed away. As 
the end drew near. Governor Carver was sent for, and 
going aboard the Mayflower, he received by word of mouth 
the will of the dying man. Soon after this he folded his 
hands and fell asleep. William White went to his reward 
on the same day. It was an inexpressible bereavement for 
the little colony to lose two such members within the same 
twenty-four hours. The burial was a solemn occasion. 
His wife soon followed him. His wife, his son Joseph, and 
Carter, a man-servant, all fell victims to " the first sick- 
ness." A part of the family still remained in England, 
but Priscilla Mullins was the only one who was left of the 
circle on this side of the water. It was given to this fair 
maiden to play an important part in the future of the 



THE PILGRIMS 181 

colony, and into her life-story there was woven the web 
of one of the most charming romances in our literature. 
" Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of 
her being," she will never cease to be the fairest type of 
the Puritan maiden. 

Stephen Hopkins was a man of weight in the colony. 
Like many another man he had the faults of his virtues. 
He was intelligent, robust, enterprising, prac- 
Hopkins tical, quick to see the point, and fertile in 
expedients ; but he was a bit touchy and not 
at all averse to a set-to with anybody who crossed his 
path. For several years he was a member of the govern- 
or's Council. He built the first wharf which was erected 
by the Plymouth people. He was interested in shipping, 
and a comparatively large owner of cattle when he died. 
He was one of the sturdy company to venture out and act 
as adviser in the first search for a suitable place for settle- 
ment. It was at his house that Samoset was lodged over 
night when he first appeared with his " Welcome " to the 
Pilgrims, and when, on his showing a determination to 
remain longer and the water being too low to take him 
out to the ship, it was thought necessary to entrust him 
to watchful eyes and strong hands. To some in the colony 
it was no doubt a nerve-shaking business ; but Hopkins 
was never wanting in resolution and courage. It was 
Winslow and Hopkins, with Squanto for guide and inter- 
preter, who were sent through the forests to see Massa- 
soit. A man weak and timid would surely have shrunk 
from such a service. 

But his vigor and pluck had their reverse sides ; and 
there were occasions when one could wish that his strong 
will had not been quite so strong, and his daring not quite 
so near to recklessness. While holding office in the govern- 
ing body of the little state, he allowed his anger to get the 
upper hand of his discretion and betray him into an 
assault on a man, for which he was duly tried and heavily 
fined. Eleven years before the Mayflower sailed on her 
famous voyage, Hopkins had been sentenced to death by 
court martial, and would have swung from the yard-arm 



182 THE PILGRIMS 

of a British ship had not his family interceded and saved 
him from the ignominious fate. As Goodwin tells the 
story, Hopkins was lay reader to the chaplain of his ship 
when, in 1609, Governor Gates sailed from England for 
Virginia. The ship was driven out of her course and 
wrecked at Bermuda. Our future Pilgrim, always noted 
for the energy of his opinions and the fidelity with which 
he adhered to them, insisted that landing in Bermuda 
instead of Virginia broke the contract under which he em- 
barked, and that therefore he was free to go as he pleased. 
Governor Gates thought otherwise. He called his conduct 
treason, with results as just stated. All through his life 
— near the end as at the beginning — there was this 
tendency to be a law unto himself. 

Still he was a man of much value to the colony. He 
died in the same year that Brewster passed on. In his 
posterity he has been greatly honored. One of his great- 
grandsons was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
and another was the first admiral of our navy. If as 
admiral he did not fulfil all the expectations which the 
brilliant opening of his career had awakened, it may be 
that along with some of the eminently praiseworthy quali- 
ties of his energetic great-grandfather he had also in- 
herited some of the drawbacks which ran in his blood. 

John Alden was a young man of twenty-one when the 
Pilgrims, on arriving at Southampton, found and hired 

him to enter their service for a year. He was 
Alden ^ valuable discovery. Whatever his ancestry, 

or training, or previous associations, he soon 
became flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone, and 
when the time for which he was employed was up, instead 
of going back to his native land he was ready to cast in 
his lot with them, and take his full share of the hardships 
as well as the triumphs of the Pilgrims. 

Alden was a cooper, and his function was an important 
one to the colony. At first flush it may seem strange that 
this httle company should have needed a cooper. But it 
has been discovered by those who, like Dr. Griflis, have 
investigated the matter that there was a law on the statute- 
books of England to the eff'ect that whoever exported beer 



THE PILGRIMS 183 

should give bonds obliging him to bring in as many staves 
as would make good the amount of material which had 
gone into the beer casks which had been taken out. The 
" Clapboard," of which more will be heard further on, 
were these staves. A cooper in those days, as in the latter 
days of New England, was a man who could make barrels 
not only, but also " rive " the forest timber into strips 
suitable for manufacturing into barrels. It was given to 
me in my boyhood frequently to witness both of these 
processes — though the casks which were constructed 
from the staves thus made were not for beer, but for pork 
and molasses and mackerel. 

Goodwin pays this fine tribute to Alden : " The colo- 
nial cooper soon became a leader. He was assistant to 
every governor but Carver, serving at least forty-three 
years ; he was the colony's treasurer some thirteen years, 
and was eight times deputy from Duxbury — sometimes 
holding two of these positions at once. He is credited 
with martial tastes, and in the early days was Standish's 
close attendant. Alden's male descendants have furnished 
a continual succession of noteworthy soldiers and sailors ; 
and the females, to a striking extent, have had husbands 
of like character." In confirmation of this statement, it 
may be said that two presidents of the United States, 
John Adams and John Quincy Adams, were descendants 
of John Alden. He was the last of the signers of the 
Mayflower Compact to start on his pilgrimage to the 
Great Beyond, and it was not until he was well-nigh four- 
score and ten that he entered into the peace which re- 
maineth unto the people of God. 



VII 

Coming back from our excursion among recent acces- 
sions to the Pilgrim Company in the list of passengers 
on board the ship, it will not be out of place, 
The while she is still pressing on to her destina- 

Mayflower tion, to look a little into her record and say a 
few words about the Mayflower. 
The story of the vessel is of special interest. The 
Speedwell, as we have noted, had been purchased by the 



184 THE PILGRIMS 

colonists both for the present exigency and for future 
use ; but the Mayflower was chartered for this particular 
service. It is, however, about the hired vessel, and not 
the one they owned, that historic interest gathers and the 
charm of a stern but fascinating romance evermore hngers. 
Poets will never cease to illuminate their verse, orators and 
essayists to round out their periods, and students of the 
past to emphasize their lessons with the name of this ship. 
No war-ship which ever sailed, bearing splendid heroes to 
splendid victories, shines with such a glory. 

It is a singular fact that neither the name of the May- 
flower nor the Speedwell is ever mentioned in the narratives 
of Bradford and Winslow. With these writers the desig- 
nation is the " larger " and the " lesser " vessel. It is not 
until we come upon it in the " New England Memorial " 
of Nathaniel Morton, which did not appear until 1669, 
that we find the larger ship called the Mayflower. This 
has led more than one writer to ask for the authority on 
which these names of the two ships rest. Morton's au- 
thority would be enough; fpr he caught up and handed 
on what must have been a trustworthy tradition. But 
there is a testimony too convincing to be questioned. It 
is found in the official records of the Old Colony. In 1623, 
allotments of land were made to the colonists. In one 
of the headings of these allotments which were made to 
the several groups of the colonists we have this clause, 
" which came over in the Mayflower." This is an official 
record, made in 1623; and it settles the question of the 
name beyond any peradventure. 

The Mayflower was small — measured by modern 
standards, surprisingly small ; yet she was a hundred and 
eighty tons burden. Her capacity, therefore, was much 
greater than that of many of the craft used by the in- 
trepid and hardy mariners of those and earlier days in 
making their passages from continent to continent. 

As early as the reign of Henry VII, or not far from 
four centuries ago, a vessel was built in England with a 
tonnage as high as one thousand. But this was an extraor- 
dinary achievement. The vast majority were not only 
smaller, but very much smaller. The Santa Maria, in 



THE PILGRIMS 185 

which Columbus sailed at once to this new world and to 
an undying fame, is estimated to have been of not over 
a hundred tons. The Nina and the Pinta were of con- 
siderably less capacity. Like Columbus, Martin Frobisher 
had three ships when he set out on his first voyage of 
discovery ; but the Gabriel, which was the largest, regis- 
tered only thirty-five tons. The largest of the three vessels 
vrith which Cartier undertook the second and most fruit- 
ful of his voyages in 1535, and which he took as far up 
the St. Lawrence as the marvelously picturesque locality 
which was subsequently to be known as Quebec, was not 
more than a hundred and twenty tons burden. Of the 
two ships which bore Pontgrave, the Breton merchant, 
and the beloved Champlain, the founder of Quebec and the 
■father of New France, and their associates in what Park- 
man calls an " adventurous knight-errantry," across the 
Atlantic in 1603, one was of fifteen and the other of only 
twelve tons capacity. As size then ruled, the Mayflozver 
was not an exceptionally small vessel, but was, in fact, 
larger than any other here mentioned, since the big ship 
of Henry's time. 

But as has been well observed by other writers, these 
ships of Columbus and Frobisher and Cartier and Cham- 
plain were officered and manned by crews who knew the sea 
and the hardships and perils of the sea, and were not 
daunted by wind and storm and tossing billows. On board 
the Mayflower were not only men, but women and children 
— women to the number of twenty-nine, and children, male 
and female, to the number of twelve — who were unused 
to a seafaring life, and to whom their limited variety of 
food and their crowded quarters must have become ex- 
tremely irksome. For though their ship, as we have seen, 
was comparatively large, yet when to a passenger list of 
one hundred and two there were added not less than twenty- 
five who belonged to the ship, it will be readily inferred 
there could have been only narrow space for each in- 
dividual. 



186 THE PILGRIMS 



VIII 



All went well until the good ship was half-way across 
the Atlantic. The wind had been fair, the weather fine, 

and the only discomfort worth mentioning 
Trying ex- j^g^^j been the inevitable seasickness of some 
periences Qf ^}jg passengers. 

and inter- g^^ smooth sailing was not to continue, 

esting in- Fierce storms arose. The wind blew a gale, 
cidents l^he waters were lashed into fury. The vessel 

was strained. " One of the main beams in the 
midship was bowed and cracked, which put them in some 
fear that the ship could not be able to perform the voyage." 

The officers were put on their mettle. The 
The strained leaks were threatening. The sailors muttered, 
beam j^jid their discontent and evident anxiety must 

have occasioned not a little misgiving and 
alarm on the part of the more timid of the company. The 
strongest hearted of them all could not have been without 
grave apprehensions. Mishap after mishap had overtaken 
them ; was their brave little craft now to founder and 
carry them all to the bottom of the sea ? At first there was 
excitement and difference of opinion ; but after careful 
examination the master and others said they knew the ship 
to be strong and firm under water ; " and for the buckling of 
the main beam, there was a great iron screw the passengers 
brought out of Holland, which would raise the beam into 
its place." Fortunate Avas the man — fortunate for him- 
self and fortunate for his associates — who thought of the 
screw and brought it along! God was in the thought as 
He was in the storm. Dr. Ames is of opinion that the 
bent and cracked beam could have been lifted up and 
restored to its place by a system of wedges. Possibly. But 
the simple quick-working screw was much better. It could 
be operated effectively in the storm ; and at that critical 
moment, when the question of going forward or returning 
had to be settled, the screw may have saved the day for the 
future of the Pilgrims. " They committed themselves to 
the will of God, and resolved to proceed." Storm followed 



THE PILGRIMS 187 

storm. Sometimes for days together " the winds were so 
fierce and the seas so high " that no sails could be spread, 
and the ship had to be left to drift under bare poles. It 
made no difference. Through fair weather and foul, guided 
by a definite purpose and drawn by an unseen attraction 
the Mayfloxcer held steadily to her westward course. 

In one of the severe storms which the vessel encountered, 
John Howland came near losing his life. In a lurch of the 

ship he was thrown into the sea ; but " it 
Howland pleased God," so Bradford tells us, " that he 
overboard caught hold of the top-sail halliards, which 

hung overboard, and ran out at length; yet 
he held his hold, though he was sundry fathoms under 
water, till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of 
the water, and then with a boat hook and other means got 
into the ship again, and his life saved ; and though he was 
something ill with it ; yet he lived many years after, and 
became a profitable member both in Church and Common- 
wealth." Very true. For John Carver would have lost 
a valuable assistant, the Mayflower Compact a sturdy 
signer, Elizabeth Tilley a devoted and faithful husband, 
and a very numerous and reputable posterity would have 
been without an ancestor had not young Howland " held his 
hold," and been pulled out' of those " sundry fathoms " of 
seething waters and " boat-hooked " into the ship. 



IX 

There were two deaths on the way over. One was that 
of a seaman. His going evidently made a deep impression. 
Bradford calls it " a special work of God's 
Shadow providence." He was " a proud and very pro- 

and sun- fane young man." He seems to have taken a 
shine peculiar delight in taunting and tormenting 

those who were seasick. If they remonstrated 
he swore at them. Nor did he hesitate to tell them that " he 
hoped to help cast half of them overboard before they came 
to their journey's end." But " before they came half seas 
over," this boisterous young fellow, with his " lusty, able 



188 THE PILGRIMS 

body," and his " haughty " spirit, and his tongue given to 
" cursing," was smitten with " a grievous disease," from 
which he failed to rally, " and so was himself the first that 
was thrown overboard." It is not strange that this tale 
was made to yield a moral. 

The other death was one of the company. William 
Butten, a servant of Samuel Fuller, passed away when only 
a few days out from land. As if, however, it was a special 
purpose of Providence to maintain the count of these pious 
voyagers unbroken to the end, a son, who, in the name 
Oceanus, was to carry with him as long as he lived a strik- 
ing reminder of the circumstances in which he had first 
opened his eyes to the light, had been born into the family 
of Stephen Hopkins; and thus the number, one hundred 
and two, which, hke certain numbers to the Jews, ought to 
be held sacred by Congregationalists, was kept good. 
v.Singularly enough, when this number had been increased 
by the birth, on board the ship while she lay at anchor, of 
Peregrine White, the first English child born in New 
England, to one hundred and three, it was quickly and 
painfully reduced to one hundred and two through the 
death by drowning of Dorothy Bradford, the wife of 
Wilham Bradford, while he was away with the last explor- 
ing party. 



Up to the point where signs of land began to appear the 
Mayflower had had some rough experiences. To many of 

the passengers the voyage must have seemed 
Off Cape long and trying. As we have seen, violent 
Cod gales smote them, accidents befell them, and 

the days and weeks wore on wearily. Still, in 
what happened to the ship and her freight of men and 
women, both as respects length of time in crossing the sea 
and roughness of weather, there was nothing exceptional. 
The vessel, which nineteen years later bore Madame de la 
Petrie and her Ursuline companions in a service to which 
they had dedicated themselves and their all, and the young 
nuns who had been sent out to found the hospital which a 



THE PILGRIMS 189 

famous niece of Richelieu had endowed, was seventj-two 
days in making the passage from Dieppe to Tadousac. 
Fogs and storms and icebergs conspired to hinder prog- 
ress ; and once it seemed as if the Httle boat must go down 
and carry all to a watery grave. 

Comparisons, however, while moderating ideas and 
checking exaggerated statements, do not lift burdens nor 
soften pangs. We know that the passengers on board the 
Mayflower had to go through a severe and courage-test- 
ing ordeal in their late autumn trip across the Atlantic. 
It must have been like the dawning of a new, bright day 
after a night of sullen darkness and tempest to discover 
tokens of land, and to realize that the shores of the New 
World which were beckoning them to its freedom and its 
opportunities were not far away. 

Early on the morning of Friday, November twentieth — 
so, after having corrected evident mistakes made by some 
of the chroniclers of the event and reconciled conflicting 
statements, the best authorities have concluded — the 
wished-for coast was sighted. The ship was off Cape Cod. 
The captain probably knew where he was. Indeed, Brad- 
ford says, " The which being made and certainly known 
to be it, they were not a httle joyful." Other masters, 
Gosnold and Smith, Waymouth and Hudson, and many 
besides, had sailed these waters, and given such descrip- 
tions of the headlands and bays, that an experienced sea- 
faring man could not well mistake the locality. 



XI 

But this was not thought to be the right spot at which 
to make the landing. The plan was "to find some place 

about Hudson's River for their habitation." 
Where to Hence " after some deliberation had amongst 
land themselves and with the master of the ship 

they tacked about and resolved to stand for 
the southward." At the start the weather was good and 
the wind was fair ; and had these conditions continued the 
run to the mouth of the Hudson could not have been a 



190 THE PILGRIMS 

long one. But the ship, already strained and weakened, 
was on a treacherous coast in a treacherous month of the 
year. At the end of a half day the wind fa,iled, and the 
captain and his company found themselves " amongst 
dangerous shoals and roaring breakers ; and they were so 
far entangled therewith as they conceived themselves in 
great danger." They " put about " and bore back again 
to the cape, " and thought themselves happy to get out of 
those dangers before night overtook them, as by God's 
providence they did." 

It has been asserted on early authority, and generally 
believed, that Captain Jones was bribed by the Dutch to see 
to it that the Pilgrims did not land at the mouth of the 
Hudson River. Nathaniel Morton, in his " New England's 
Memorial," issued in 1669, asserts, and he repeats and 
emphasizes the assertion, that Jones was " fraudently 
hired " " to dissappoint them in their going thither." 
" Of this plot betwixt the Dutch and Master Jones " he 
avowed that he " had late and certain intelhgence." This 
statement, so positive and unqualified, has been widely 
accepted by subsequent writers. Without going very much 
into the controversy it seems to me only just to say that 
my judgment falls in unhesitatingly with the conclusion 
reached by those who have affirmed " that the Dutch could 
not have bribed Captain Jones." 

There is more plausibiUty in the suggestion, or rather 
positive avowal of Ames, that there was a conspiracy in 
which, not the Dutch, but Sir Ferdinando Gorges and 
Captain Jones were the principal parties. Gorges was a 
man of intelligence and of positive and commanding influ- 
ence. He was deeply interested in New England affairs- 
Master Jones was " the very wilhng and subservient ally 
and tool of Gorges, and had been such for years." The 
Dutch had absolutely no motive for trying to prevent the 
Pilgrims from settling in what was popularly supposed to 
be their territory. Gorges and his associates had every 
motive for attracting settlements farther north. The pur- 
pose was, " if there was a conspiracy," " to secure these 
planters as colonists " for their own lands. Gorges and 
his " Council for New England " had failed in their 



THE PILGRIMS 191 

attempts to found colonies in the New World. Failure was 
inevitable in view of the material used — "a somewhat 
notable mixture of two of the worst elements of society — 
convicts and broken-down ' gentlemen.' " These Leyden 
people were of another sort and would not fail them. Hence 
the bold scheme " by which the Pilgrim Colony was to be 
stolen bodily " and set down in the wilderness where it would 
do the conspirators the most good. 

The proofs brought forward to estabhsh this contention 
are hardly convincing. It is easier to accept the facts 
which lie open to view on the face of the statements made 
by those close at hand and most deeply concerned in the 
issue. Captain Jones was no saint. He was not over- 
charged with the milk of human kindness. He was not 
crossing seas and facing storms in the spirit of a philan- 
thropist. He was an old sea-dog patterned after the type 
of his day. It is no doubt true that his record was not to 
his credit. But when we think of the real perils of the sit- 
uation there in the shoals off Monomoy, and what a prud- 
ent master would surely do, and when the statement made 
by Bradford, who had amplest opportunity at the time of 
writing his " History," to know all that was to be known in 
a matter of this kind, are carefully weighed, there seems to 
be no solid ground on which to base the charge so long 
lodged against Jones of having conspired with the Dutch, 
or with Gorges, or anybody else to defeat the aims of the 
Pilgrims. It may be that this was another of the many 
instances where the wrath of man is made to praise the 
Lord ; but it is perfectly evident that whether through 
treachery, or by accident, or under the direct providence of 
God, the landing was made where, though the immediate 
outlook was stern and forbidding, the best opportunities 
for individual action were open, and the largest results of 
freedom and righteousness were possible. 



192 THE PILGRIMS 



xn 

On Saturday, November twenty-first, the valiant but 
weather-beaten ship rounded Long Point and 
Safe at jg^ gQ }jgj. anchors within what is now the 

anchor harbor of Provincetown. She was safely shel- 

tered at last. 

"And there the Mayflower, folding up her wings, 
Like a tired sea-bird, round her anchor swings." 

Not quite, but almost, four months had been exhausted 
in getting from their starting-point in Holland to the 
borders of the country they sought. Another month of 
which we are to take note must pass in prayer and eager 
watching and wearisome exploring and earnest consulta- 
tion before a site for settlement could be definitely fixed. 
Still it was much for these Pilgrims to have their backs 
turned on the wide swelling ocean, and their feet again 
planted on the " firm and stable earth — their proper 
element." Whatever troubles might be in store for them 
in the days to come, the book of their past troubles was a 
closed volume. They were in a new environment, and they 
were to live their lives under new conditions. 

When it was all over, and their sails were furled, and the 
winds from the shore were bringing them the refreshing 
odors of pine and juniper and sassafras, it is easy to 
imagine the exceeding and grateful gladness in which the 
hearts of these devout souls swelled, and the promptness 
with which they fell on their knees and thanked God. One 
can easily imagine the intense fervor with which they 
acknowledged the guiding hand and protecting care of the 
Almighty, and expressed their thanks for signal deliv- 
erances from dangers and miseries. They did not wait 
until " they trod the wintry strand " before sounding their 
notes of recognition and praise ; but ere they set foot on 
the coveted shore, " with prayer and psalm they wor- 
shiped " God. 



X 

AN EVENTFUL MONTH 



And the heavy night hung dark 

The hills and waters o'er, 
When a band of exiles moored their bark 

On the wild New England shore. 

Felicia Hemans. 

New Plymouth was not built and peopled by persons wholly indepen- 
dent of each other. . . . They came there a united body of men, bound 
together by solemn compactf men of one heart and one mind, intent on the 
same purpose, and that a holy one. — Joseph Hxintek. 

Such men make not only the true chiu-ch but the true state. 

John D. Long. 

In the cabin of the Mayflower not only was the foundation-stone of 
republican institutions on this continent laid, but the first New England 
town-meeting was held and the first elective officer chosen by the will of a 
majority. — William T. Davis. 

In New England the Puritan theocracy died almost at birth ; but the free 
government of Plymouth, Dorchester, Massachusetts, Maine, and finally of 
all in one, blossomed into the free repubUc that has become the first great 
power in the world. — Cuktis Guild, Jk. 

O noble commencement of the foundations of an enterprise, hke which 
the world never saw before, nor probably will ever see again ! Within half 
an hour's sail of the . . . place where they were to abide all the rest of their 
pilgrimage, they moored at the island, and would not again set sail that day, 
or take an oar in hand, or do aught of worldly work, because it was the 
Lord's Day. — George B. Cheevek. 

It is on account of the virtue displayed in its institution and manage- 
ment, and of the great consequences to which it ultimately led, that the 
Colony of PljTnouth claims the attention of Mankind. 

John G. Palfbet. 



AN EVENTFUL MONTH 

IT was a month to a day from the time the Mayflower \ 
dropped her anchor within the shelter of Cape Cod to 
the time the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. The 
month was a strenuous one, full of labors, anxieties, watch- 
ings, searchings, sorrows, baffled hopes, and final triumphs. 
The things said and done within this period make an 
illuminating chapter in the history of our forefathers. The 
way they had in emergencies of falMng back on fundamen- 
tal principles, their habit of sturdy application to what- 
ever business might be in hand, the courage with which 
they faced dangers and rose superior to disappointments 
and griefs, and their unflinching loyalty to divine institu- 
tions and commands, have splendid illustration in the 
record of those few weeks, and deserve careful study. 



This eventful month opened with the drafting and sign- 
ing of the Mayflower Compact. The transaction took place 
down in the narrow cabin of the ship on the 
The May- forenoon of the day on which the harbor was 
flower entered and sails furled. When the anchor 

Compact ^a^g dropped the Pilgrims had a civil constitu- 
tion and a government. They were an incon- 
siderable people, small in numbers, without wealth or stand- 
ing, and remote from all civilized nations ; but they were a 
state. They had an organic law, written out and sub- 
scribed by their own hands, chosen rulers and a policy. 
Some day this state, insignificant and unknown as it then 
was, might be heard from, back on the other side of the 



196 THE PILGRIMS 

waters! Possibly George III, when his turn should come 
to sit on the throne, might have to take note of it ! 

There were two reasons for drawing up and adopting 
this compact. 

The first was that there were ominous whis- 
Wliy the perings and muffled threats of insubordina- 
compact ^^^Qi^ £^n(j g^ break-up of the colony. This is 

"^^^ Bradford's explanation of the transaction. It 

formed ^^s " occasioned partly by the discontented and 

mutinous speeches that some of the strangers 
amongst them had let fall from them in the ship. . . . That 
when they came ashore they would use their own liberty." 
These " strangers amongst them " were some of the acces- 
sions to the colony which had been made at Southampton. 
Having joined the company in the expectation that they 
were to land at the mouth of the Hudson, they may have 
claimed that landing somewhere else absolved them from 
their obligation to the company. It will be recalled that 
this was the ground taken by Hopkins when he had shipped 
to go to Virginia and was cast away on the island of Ber- 
muda. Hopkins was one of the Southampton contingent, 
and he was not a man to hide his hght under a bushel; 
but even though he himself had kept still about it, others 
might have known of his opinions and conduct. Billington 
was powder which any little spark would inflame. At any 
rate, it was well to nip insubordination in the bud. 

The second reason was that, unless something of this 
sort were done, the colony would be left without law. Until 
this compact was adopted there was no authority to which 
appeal could be made to preserve order and enforce justice. 
This again is Bradford's explanation : " For none had 
power to command them, the patent they had being for 
Virginia, and not for New England, which belonged to 
another government, with which the Virginia Company had 
nothing to do." Hence the instrument. For these astute 
statesmen concluded that an act of this nature, drawn 
up and signed by all the responsible persons of the com- 
pany, especially when all circumstances were duly consid- 
ered, " might be as firm as any patent, and in some respects 
more sure." John Pierce, one of the Adventurers, held a 



THE PILGRIMS 197 

patent in the interest of the colonists; but this patent 
was from the London Virginia Company ; and the charter 
of this company covered no rights to territory on which 
the Pilgrims were about to land. On the contrary, this 
whole region was under the control of the company of 
which Ferdinando Gorges was the leading spirit. This 
company had been known as the Second or Plymouth 
Virginia Company; but it had been changed or merged 
into " The Council for New England." It is this fact that 
the territory to be occupied had been granted to the com- 
pany with which Gorges was so closely identified, which 
lends color to the charge strenuously maintained by Dr. 
Ames that the bribing of Captain Jones was not by the 
Dutch, but by Gorges. As has been said already, it does 
not seem to me that Jones was bribed at all. Be that as it 
may, however, the Pilgrims knew of no authority which 
they could invoke, and that if they had any law they must 
make it for themselves. This is what they did — made a 
law for themselves. 

The Mayflower Compact is an immortal document. It 
is justly counted one of the most important contributions 
ever made to the civic thought of the world. 
Text of the ^he tender reverence in which it ought to be 
compact read will be increased if we remember that of 

the forty-one who affixed their names to it, 
twenty were dead before the end of the following March. 
Carver was not one of the twenty, but he soon followed. 

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are 
under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign 
Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, 
France, and Ireland ; Defender of the Faith, etc. 

" Having undertaken for the glory of God, and advance- 
ment of the Christian Faith, and honor of our king and 
country, a voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern 
part of Virginia ; do by these presents solemnly and mu- 
tually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant 
and combine ourselves together into a Civil Body Politic, 
for our better ordering and preservation and furtherence 
of the ends aforesaid ; and, by virtue hereof, to enact, con- 
stitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances. 



198 THE PILGRIMS 

acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall 
be thought most meet and convenient, for the general good 
of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission 
and obedience. 

" In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our 
names. Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year 
of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, King James, of Eng- 
land, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth ; and of Scotland, 
the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini, 1620." 

This narrow cabin was indeed the " Cradle of a Com- 
monwealth ; " and it was more. Bancroft declares that 
" popular constitutional liberty " had its 
Meaning birth in the Mayflower Compact. Goldwin 
of the Smith says : " It is true that this covenant was 

compact jiqI; ^ political manifesto ; it is not less true 
that it heralded a polity of self-government, 
and may take rank among the great documents of his- 
tory." This distinguishes precisely between what the in- 
strument was and what it was not, and characterizes it with 
a nice accuracy. It was not a " political manifesto," such 
as a scheming cabal, or a league of true and patriotic revo- 
lutionists might issue ; but it was a " polity of self-govern- 
ment." These men were imposing equal laws on all and 
giving to all an equal chance. They were setting up 
Democracy. They were organizing society on the basis of 
common rights. They were enacting political equality. 
They were insuring the stability and order of government 
by making each subject a part of it. They were conquer- 
ing their prejudices and delivering a fatal blow against 
class distinctions. It has been claimed that age and not 
social standing was the determining factor in the signa- 
tures made to the compact. Age, as in all the relations 
and transactions of life, had to do with the signing, of 
course, but those signatures, one after another, were a 
thrust straight in the face of social pretensions. It was 
man for man, and the simple manhood in each man was 
what counted. It was a recognition, clear and simple, 
that man 

*'. . . has a right because he is a man. 
And not because he is a kind of man." 



THE PILGRIMS 199 

Some were better than others ; some were more intelligent ; 
some were richer; some surpassed others in wisdom and 
experience and capacity to rule their little state; but all 
were recognized, and their rights were duly protected. The 
liberty of which poets through the ages had been dreaming, 
and about which philosophers had been speculating, and 
over which tyrants had been striding with ruthless disdain, 
and for which patriots had been dying — the hberty which 
is regulated by law, but which under the regulation loses 
none of its sweetness or vitahty, had here emergence and 
gracious crowning. The question ceased to be, " Is he mas- 
ter, or is he servant.? " and became, " Is he a man.? " Car- 
ver and Rowland, Winslow and Soule, Hopkins and Dotey, 
Fuller, the beloved physician, and Alden the cooper, sub- 
scribed to the compact on the basis of a common standing. 
The central idea of it all was mutual rights and obhga- 
tions — the right of each to his own individual liberty, 
and to a voice in regulating affairs wliich were common to 
all ahke and in determining the pubhc policy; and the 
obhgation of each to use his liberty as not abusing it, and 
to subordinate his mere selfish aims to the common good, 
and to make of their body politic a genuine human brother- 
hood. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. 
Those obscure statesmen down in the cabin of the May- 
flower were beginning to write, and to teach the world to 
write Man with a capital letter. 



II 

The ship was at anchor and in a safe harbor. There 
was no imminent danger to be feared from storms and 

raging seas. 
Seeking a Nevertheless, the situation was forlorn. It 

site for ig Q^\y -j^ g^ ^^jj Qj. geifis}^ mood that one can 

settlement escape the pathos there is in Bradford's words 

as he describes the state in which they were at 
the critical hour when the voyage was behind them, but all 
was dark and uncertain before them. " But here I cannot 
but stay and make a pause, and stand half amazed at this 



200 THE PILGRIMS 

poor people's present condition. . . . Thcj had no friends 
to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their 
weather-beaten bodies, no houses or much less 
The imme- towns to repair to, to seek for succor. . . . 
diate out- j^ ^g^g winter, and they that know the winters 
^°°^ of the country know them to be sharp and vio- 

lent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dan- 
gerous to travel to known places, much more to search an 
unknown coast. Besides, what could they see but a hideous 
and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? 
. . . What multitudes there might be of them, the}' knew 
not. Which way soever they turned their eyes — save up- 
ward to the heavens — they could have little solace or 
content in respect to any outward objects. All things 
stared upon them with a weather-beaten face; and the 
whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a 
wild and savage hue." These words outline the situation 
exactly as it was. It is to be remembered, however, that 
they were written many years after the event. At the 
time there was no inclination on the part of these deter- 
mined pioneers of religious and civil freedom to indulge in 
vain sentimentalism or to count up obstacles to success. 
They had crossed the ocean for a high and holy purpose; 
and the opportunity to realize this purpose was now before 
them, and they went about it. 

It was well on in the day on which the harbor was made, 
before any of the passengers could land. On account of 
the shallowness of the water the ship was 
The first obliged to come to anchor three-quarters of a 
afternoon j^jjg from shore. This made landing incon- 
venient and involved besides a good deal of 
peril to health. For the people " going on shore, were 
forced to wade a bow-sliot or two; which caused many to 
get colds and coughs." But so near to it, there was both a 
need and an eagerness to set foot on solid earth. The ship 
was out of wood, and there was a strong desire " to see 
what the land was, and what inhabitants they could meet 
with." So " fifteen or sixteen men, well armed, were set 
ashore." They saw no persons and they came upon no 
habitations. But they got some idea of the lay of the land, 



THE PILGRIMS 201 

of the nature of the soil, and of the kind of trees of which 
the forests were composed. " All wooded with oaks, pines, 
sassafras, juniper, birch, holly, vines, ash, walnut," was 
the report. At night these fifteen or sixteen returned, 
with a boat loaded with " juniper, which smelled very 
sweet and strong." This was the kind of wood they " burnt 
the most part of the time " they remained at the cape. 

Sunday was holy time to the Pilgrims, and they made it 
a day of rest. Of this there will be more to say in another 
paragraph. 

in 

It was not until Wednesday that things were in readiness 
to enter upon the serious business of finding a place for 

settlement. 
The first Monday was devoted to getting the shallop 

explo- — a g^ sloop-rigged craft of twelve or fifteen 

ration tons," which had been brought in the ship — 

out of the narrow quarters in which she had 
been stowed, that the carpenters might begin at once to put 
her in trim for needed service. This, by the way, proved to 
be a much longer job than was expected, " sixteen or seven- 
teen days." More of the people went on shore — the men 
and young folks " to refresh themselves," and the women 
" to wash." Fresh water with which to do washing must 
have been a special boon to these English dames, who, in 
addition to their own fine instincts, had had a dozen years 
of Dutch teaching in the art of cleanhness. Meantime, on 
this and the following days, swords, muskets, and corslets 
were put in order for an expedition of discovery. 

On Wednesday the work of exploration was taken up in 
an earnest and orderly fashion. Sixteen men, of whom 
Standish was leader, and to whom Bradford, Hopkins, and 
Tilley " were joined for council and advice " were sent forth, 
or rather, not so much sent forth, as according to the ac- 
count given in " Mourt's Relation," permitted in their im- 
patience to go forth, in search of a fit spot on which to 
settle. Two days were spent in diligent investigation of the 
adjacent country. 



202 THE PILGRIMS 

The party, on landing, proceeded along the shore across 
the site of what is now Provincetown to Negro Head, and 

thence past East Harbor, and on by a pond, 
The route named Fresh Water Pond, until they reached 
followed Pamet River. Here they doubled on their 

tracks, and returned by nearly the same course 
as that on which they had come. All the movements of 
these explorers were guarded and cautious. The first night 
out they built a barricade, and by turns of three kept watch 
till morning. The second night they threw what protec- 
tion they could about themselves, and arranged and posted 
their sentinels, but the rain poured down, and they were 
exceedingly uncomfortable. 

Some interesting discoveries were made. On the first 
day they saw a half-dozen Indians ; but they could not 

get near them. Later they came upon Indian 
Discoveries graves. Not knowing what they were they 
made uncovered them. On ascertaining that these 

mounds held the bones of the natives of the 
forest, they reverently covered them. 

They found a considerable quantity of maize. Goodwin 
has reproduced the story in this fresh fashion : " Not far 

away was a heap of sand which had been re- 
Corn, found cently patted over with hands. Examination 
and taken showed it to contain a small old basket of 

shelled com, while farther down was a large 
new basket, round and narrowed at the top, holding three 
or four bushels of maize, including thirty-six whole ears, 
some yellow, some red, and some mixed with blue, such as 
one sees often in the Cape Cod granaries of to-day." Near 
to the Indians' store of com there was also " found a great 
kettle which had been some ship's kettle, and brought out of 
Europe." These two discoveries were too much for the 
Pilgrims. Here was the corn which they sorely needed, and 
which they were to need still more sorely in the near future, 
especially the corn, which was still unshelled and was there- 
fore the more suitable for seed. Here, too, was the kettle 
in which to carry the corn. The question was two-sided. 
On the one side was self-preservation ; on the other was 
right. Was the demand for self-preservation so clear and 



THE PILGRIMS 203 

imperative that it could be reconciled to the right to take 
what did not belong to them? This is the way they rea- 
soned: " We were in suspense what to do with it, and the 
kettle; and, at length, after much consultation we con- 
cluded to take the kettle and as much of the corn as we 
could carry away with us. And when our shallop came, 
if we could find any of the people, and come to parley with 
them, we would give them the kettle again, and satisfy them 
for the corn. So we took all the ears, and put a good deal 
of loose corn in the kettle, for two men to bring on a staff. 
Besides, they that could put any into their pockets filled 
the same. The rest we buried again ; for we were so laden 
with armour that we could carry no more." The ethical 
quahty of this act has been sharply debated. It has always 
seemed to me something to be regretted that the kettle 
and the corn were taken. 

Besides the things already noted, four springs of water 
were discovered ; fowl were found in plenty ; and deer were 
seen. Indeed, Bradford, to the great amusement of the 
other members of the party, was caught by a simple, bent- 
saphng deer-trap, such as the Indians knew well how to 
construct. With the future governor's famiharity with the 
Scriptures, he must have thought of the passage in one of 
the greatest poems ever written: 

"FoT he is cast into a net by his own feet, 

And he walketh upon the toils. 
A gin shall take him by the heel. 

And a snare shall lay hold on him. 
And a noose is hid for him in the ground. 

And a trap for him in the way." 

At length, after much tramping and a variety of inci- 
dents, and some rather exciting experiences as well, tired 
and hungry, with clothes soiled and torn from crossing 
creeks and pushing through tangled thickets and climbing 
over fallen timbers, the explorers returned to the ship. 
They had gathered some facts, and knew a little more of 
their environment ; yet the better part of three days given 
to the search had disclosed no fit place for a settlement. 



204 THE PILGRIMS 

IV 

Before venturing on a second exploration, it was thought 
wiser to wait until the repairs on the shallop were finished; 

or so nearly finished as to admit of the use of 
The second i]^q boat. As has been said already, making 
explora- these repairs was a much more tedious piece 
*^°^ of work than had been anticipated. She had to 

be " cut down," whatever that may mean, " hi 
bestowing her betwixt the decks." Then " she was much 
opened with the peoples lying in her." Naturally it took 
considerable time to make a craft in this condition sea- 
worthy. In consequence of this delay, it was not until the 
tenth day after the first exploring party had come in that 
another was ready to go out. 

This second exploring party was larger than the first 
one had been, and it was differently organized. The cap- 
tain of the ship was getting impatient. He wanted to 
hoist sail and weigh anchor for the home voyage. It is 
evident, moreover, that he thought the Pilgrims were dilly- 
dallying, or were too fastidious in their selection of a place 
for residence. Hence he offered to go himself on the 
hunt for a site. His offer was accepted, and these shrewd 
colonists made him the leader in the search. There were 
thirty-four in all in this second company of explorers — 
Captain Jones, with nine of his sailors, and twenty-four 
picked men of the Pilgrims. 

On Monday morning, with bodies refreshed by a Sab- 
bath of rest, and spirits quickened by a Sabbath of worship, 

this large company started on their important 
Facing a quest. It was in sooth a holy grail — a home 
snow-storm ^j^ w^q wilderness, liberty to live in the world 

and work out their true destiny and move for- 
ward on the line of the will of God unmolested, which they 
sought ; and the seekers were a band of chaste knights. It 
was late in November, and the day was one to give more 
than a hint of what might be expected in the rapidly 
approaching months of winter. " It blowed and did snow 
all that day and night, and froze, withal." Six inches of 
snow fell. The shallop could make no headway against the 



THE PILGRIMS 205 

furj of the winds. She had to seek shore ; and this she did 
only a httle distance from the ship, where she waited 
through the night for better weather. In this instance the 
long boat appears to have been drafted into service to aid 
the party in reaching land. But from both craft the 
explorers had to wade in order to reach the shore. Getting 
to shore, they plodded on for miles ; and for the remainder 
of the day and the night took care of themselves as best 
they could. 

The next day the storm had abated. The party returned 
to the shore, and were met by the shallop and carried 

along to the Pamet River. This is the point 
Exploration which was reached by the preceding party of 
continued explorers. It was clear that opinion, to some 

extent at least, was gravitating to this locality 
as a fit spot on wliich to make a final stand. Setting out 
from here a wider circuit was traversed, and a more thor- 
ough inspection of the place was made than on the previous 
visit. They went up the longer of the two branches of the 
Pamet, followed by the shallop, for four or five miles. 
Some of these resolute, home-seeking Pilgrims would have 
stood it longer, and gone further, though all of them 
" were tired with marching up and down the steep hills, 
and deep valleys, which lay half-a-foot thick with snow." 
But the order to halt came from their leader. " Master 
Jones, wearied with marching, was desirous we should take 
up our lodging." The captain could meet the challenge of 
a howling tempest at sea, and stand undaunted at his post 
on shipboard in midnight darkness ; but threading his 
way through forests, tramping up and down hills, wallow- 
ing in snow, and climbing over underbrush, very soon 
dam.pened his ardor for exploration, and made him quite 
willing that the people who were intimately concerned 
with the business should do the searching for a settlement 
site. In other words, he was a hardy old tar, but a poor 
sort of landlubber. " So," as one who was of the party 
puts it, " we made there our rendezvous for that night 
under a few pine trees ; and, as it fell out, we got three fat 
geese and six ducks to our supper, which we ate with sol- 
diers' stomachs, for we had eaten little all that day." 



206 THE PILGRIMS 

In the morning, after this day of hard and fruitless toil, 
the resolutions, even of those who had been most ready the 

night before to go on and prosecute the search, 
More corn seemed to fail them. Instead of pushing into 
found and places they knew not, they took as direct a 
carried off course as they could towards those " heaps of 

sand " where they had found and taken and 
also left corn, when they were there before — left it 
because there was more than they could carry away. 
Besides the pits which they had uncovered and found stored 
with the precious grain on the previous visit, they discov- 
ered others as well ; and in all, that is, on both occasions, 
they managed to get together " about ten bushels." This 
was an ample supply for seed. " And sure it was God's 
good providence," as one of their writers has left on record, 
*' that we found this corn ; for else we know not how we 
should have done." For the moment they seem to have for- 
gotten the story of Elijah and the ravens. It would have 
been better to buy before taking possession. 

Jones had not discovered a site, but he very soon discov- 
ered that he had had enough of this exploring experience. 

The weather was threatening, and he thought 
Jones went {^ prudent to go back to the shelter of the ship, 
back to go i^Q went " home," and with him were sent 

the ship i]^Q « weakest people, and some that were sick 

and all the corn." 
Eighteen, or just three-quarters of the Pilgrims of the 
party, remained, " to make further discovery." They spent 

the night in this vicinity. The next day they 
Eighteen made their way five or six miles into the woods, 
remained They found more mounds, and opened them. 

Curious things greeted their eyes in one of 
these graves ; a piece of board three-quarters of a yard 
long, " finely carved and painted," and bowls, trays, dishes, 
and " such like trinkets." It was the grave of one of the 
captives of a French vessel which had been wrecked a few 
years before on Cape Cod, and whose officers and crew had 
fallen into the hands of the Indians. They also stumbled 
upon some wigwams, whose structure and rude furnishings 
they examined with care. Along with other things in these 



THE PILGRIMS 207 

Indian dwellings, they found wooden bowls, trays, dishes, 
earthern pots, baskets — some curiously wrought in black 
and white, with pretty patterns, and others made of crab- 
shells ; also vessels full of parched acorns, silk-grass, 
tobacco and other seeds, and stuff to be woven into mats. 
Some of these things they took away with them; but 
through haste in leaving the ship they had failed to bring 
along some of the articles with which they had hoped to 
conciliate their favor and open up trade with the Indians. 
This was left for another time. 

Thursday night, succeeding the Monday on which they 
had started, found the second exploring party back and 
snugly housed in the ship. So far as the 
An earnest main object of these two explorations was con- 
discussion cerned, the planters were no further along 
than when they began their search — no fur- 
ther along save that they had discovered one place, if no 
more, where they did not wish to begin a settlement. As 
has been said before, opinion to some extent had been grav- 
itating toward the region round about the mouth of the 
Pamet River as a suitable locaHty for pitching tents and 
making their homes. 

As was the custom of the Pilgrims in matters of moment, 
the question was threshed out in a free interchange of opin- 
ion. No doubt the debate was a somewhat warm one. The 
known impatience of the captain of the ship, and his eager 
desire to have a decision speedily reached, would be likely 
to give point to the different views as they should be 
expressed by one and another. Those in the affirmative 
said : that the mouth of the river afforded a convenient 
harbor for boats, though too shallow for ships ; that lands 
in the vicinity were good for corn ; that the waters about 
the cape were full of fish ; that the locahty beyond question 
would prove to be healthy ; that the winter was close upon 
them ; that their supply of rations was running short, and 
that the ship might slip away from them on short notice 
and leave them to shift as best they might. It was a pretty 
substantial array of arguments, and the inference that it 
behooved them to act promptly and fix on some spot to 
which they could repair and begin the work of home-build- 



208 THE PILGRIMS 

ing, does not seem illogical. Those in the negative said: 
that according to reports which had reached them while 
still in the old country, there was a much better place off 
twenty leagues to the north of them ; that probably there 
might be a much more ehgible place near by which a little 
further search would disclose ; that the water for drinking 
in the locality for which the others were contending was 
not satisfactory, and that in general the mouth of the 
Pamet River would not meet the requirements of the col- 
ony. For these reasons, those who stood on the negative 
side in the debate thought it wise to continue the search, 
and not decide on a locahty which did not suit them until 
they were obliged to do so. This view prevailed; but it 
was the understanding, or rather agreement, that the 
search should be confined to the region of the bay, and on 
no account be extended as far as Agawam, now Ipswich, 
which was the point twenty leagues away. This was 
progress by elimination. So, after all, some headway had 
been made. 



After these days given to discussion, and when the con- 
clusion just mentioned had been reached, the third explor- 
ing party went forth. There were eighteen in 
The third gj[^ Ten of them were Pilgrims. These ten 
exploration « ^gj-g appointed," but they " were of them- 
selves willing " to go. This is the shining list : 
Standish, Carver, Bradford, Winslow, John Tilley, Edward 
Tilley, Rowland, Warren, Hopkins, and Dotey. There 
were two seamen who were in the service of the colonists — 
Allerton and Enghsh. Two of the captain's mates, Clarke 
and Coppin, also accompanied the explorers, and added 
greatly to the efficiency of the company. Besides these, the 
master gunner and three sailors went along. It is easy to 
see that this party was organized on the basis of something 
to be done. 

Rather late in the day on the Wednesday next after the 
Thursday on which the second exploring party had re- 



THE PILGRIMS 209 

turned to the ship, the third party set out. Repairs on 
the shallop had been at length completed, and the boat was 

in good trim for the rough work she was about 
The party ^q undertake. This time there was a definite 
setting out point in view, though the knowledge of where 

that point might be was exceedingly vague. 
Coppin, one of the two mates just mentioned, had been 
on this coast before, and he told of a great river and 
good harbor lying over against Cape Cod, and not much 
more than eight leagues away. His recollections of local- 
ities were hazy, but he was sure that somewhere in the near 
region there was an inviting harbor and a good place to 
settle. The mate remembered this place from a Httle inci- 
dent which was associated with it, though the incident 
stood out in his mind with a good deal more vividness than 
the locahty itself. When he was there on a previous occa- 
sion, " one of the wild men, with whom they had some 
trucking, stole a harping iron," or harpoon, " from them," 
and hence " they called it Thievish Harbor." This was 
none other than Plymouth Harbor ; and it was the point 
beyond which the explorers were not to go. 

The weather was severe and the winds were high. The 
oarsmen had a hard struggle in getting past Long Point. 
Before they could hoist sail and make the smoother water 
of a lee shore, Edward Tilley and the gunner were both very 
ill. It was so " cold " that " the water froze on the clothes 
of the party, . . . and made them many times like coats of 
iron." Men not in the best physical condition, or not hard- 
ened to this kind of exposure, were little fitted for such 
arduous undertakings. But when once under some meas- 
ure of shelter from the fierce wind that was blowing, the 
boat made tolerable headway, and keeping as near the 
coasthne as the shallow water would permit, steered by the 
mouth of the Pamet River past the entrance to Wellfleet 
Bay, and on for twenty miles or more to a point off from 
what is now Eastham. Here the party landed — though it 
was by the usual method of much wading, and encamped for 
the night. Indians had been seen on the beach, cutting up 
a stranded grampus, and special precautions were taken 
against surprise or attack under the cover of darkness by 

14 



210 THE PILGRIMS 

the savages. In the morning the explorers divided their 
force — some going by boat and some on foot, for exam- 
ining the harbor faciHties of the bay of Wellfleet and the 
adjacent country. Nothing satisfactory was discovered. 
At the close of the day, faint with hunger and wearied 
with their long tramping, both divisions of the party 
returned to nearly the same spot where they had rested 
the night before. The next day had in it some thrilling 
adventures. In the middle of the night the sentries had 
heard an alarming sound, and the company was aroused 
from sleep. A couple of shots were fired, and nothing 
more was heard of the invaders. But early in the morning, 
while eating their breakfast, the Indians fell upon them, 
and they realized that " showers of arrows " might be 
something other than a figure of speech. However, as this 
story of the attack and repulse falls into another chapter 
— a chapter in which the mutual relations and dealings of 
the Pilgrims and Indians are to be fully narrated, no fur- 
ther reference need be made to it in this connection. 

After this encounter the whole party boarded the shal- 
lop, and set out for the destination which was vaguely in 
the mind of Coppin — though with the intention of 
stopping short of that harbor should they come upon a 
satisfactory landing-place on the way. As the wind was 
favorable, they decided to sail along the coast, and ex- 
amine the country with as much care as they could. But 
while the wind was still from the right quarter, after an 
hour or two it began to snow and rain. In the middle of 
the afternoon the wind increased, and the sea was very 
rough. With such a storm upon them, and darkness rap- 
idly approaching and in utter ignorance of the coast, it is 
no wonder that all the canvas the boat could carry was 
spread, and that the craft was crowded to the limit. But 
the storm and the crowding brought a double disaster: 
" the hinges of the rudder broke," and two men had to do 
what steering they might with oars, and to add to the diffi- 
culties, " the mast was split in three pieces." The danger 
was imminent. The coast along which the furious winds 
were driving them was one which has no mercy for stranded 
seafarers. 



THE PILGRIMS 211 

If, however, the wind was contrary, the tide was on the 
side of the strugghng explorers, and bore them into the 
harbor. But inside they were in as much peril as they had 
been outside, for the mate, who had been piloting them, soon 
discovered that he was mistaken in thinking he knew where 
he was. Instead, he was as much in the dark as any of 
them; and had his directions been followed and had the 
boat been borne " up northward," they had surely been lost. 
" But a lusty seaman which steered, bade those who rowed, 
if they were men, about with her, or else they were all cast 
away ; the which they did with speed. So he bid them be 
of good cheer, and row lustily ; for there was a fair ground 
before them, and he doubted not but that they should find 
one place or other where they might ride in safety. And 
though it was very dark and rained sore, yet in the end 
they got under the lee of a small island, and remained there 
all night in safety." In another account written by the 
same hand, but at an earher date and when the sense of 
help from on high was somewhat fresher in his mind, this 
is the setting which is given to the facts : " Yet still the 
Lord kept us ; and we bare up for an island before us ; and 
recovering that island, being compassed about with many 
rocks, and dark night growing upon us, it pleased the 
divine Providence that we fell upon a place of sandy 
ground, where our shallop did ride safe and secure all that 
night." 

What a feeling of relief these simple statements bring 
to the reader! There are passages in the account which 
Bradford gives of this fearful struggle with storm and 
darkness which almost take one's breath away, the danger 
is so threatening and utter destruction seems so near. 
But under the guidance of God, and through the counsel 
of a " lusty seaman " who kept a well-poised head on his 
shoulders, and by aid of the stout rowing of the men at the 
oars, they had escaped the perils of engulfing waves and a 
rock-bound and treacherous coast, and were at rest in a 
place of safety! They were not relieved from fear of 
Indians, and the hours of that cold and anxious night must 
have dragged heavily ; but the boat had reached the shore, 
and they were in no immediate danger of shipwreck. With 



212 THE PILGRIMS 

what grateful hearts they must have welcomed the morning ; 
and how sweet the sunshine must have been to eyes that 
had grown weary peering into the storm and trying to 
penetrate the mystery of the enshrouding darkness. No 
life had been lost. The boat had been damaged, but not 
beyond repair. Very soon, too, they discovered that they 
were where they could tarry for a while unmolested, and 
refresh their tired bodies and their jaded spirits. In what 
a temper of thanksgiving and deep yet quiet joy the story 
is told : " Though this had been a day and night of much 
trouble and danger unto them, yet God gave them a morn- 
ing of comfort and refreshing — as usually He does to 
His children — for the next day was a fair sunshining 
day, and they found themselves to be on an island, secure 
from the Indians, where they might dry their stuff, fix 
their pieces, and rest themselves." Exactly this is what 
they did. Saturday was given to resting from the fatigue 
and excitement of the preceding twenty-four hours, thaw- 
ing out and drying their garments, repairing their shal- 
lop, and making up their minds what to do next. 



VI 

There was one other thing which these Pilgrims did on 
that Saturday. They made preparations for the due ob- 
servance of the Sabbath. This single sentence 
A signifl- covers what Bradford has to say about it in 
cant Ob- his « History : " " This being the last day of 
servance of ^j^g week, they prepared there to keep the 
the Sabbath Sabbath." In " Mourt's Relation " the record 
is even briefer : " On the Sabbath Day we 
rested." Here is the announcement of preparation for 
rest on the Lord's Day, and of the fact that the rest was 
taken. That is all. But what a wealth of meaning this 
announcement holds, and what a testimony it bears to the 
emphasis which these men placed upon the value of the 
Sabbath to the toiling millions of the world, and also to 
their sense of obligation to honor what God honors, and 
to be obedient to divine command. It was an act which 



THE PILGRIMS 213 

mounts to the sublime. It had in it the calm self-restraint, 
the lofty heroism, and the unflinching loyalty to principle, 
which we arc wont to associate with martyrdom. It is 
impossible to contemplate it without a feeling of awe. 

In this remarkable instance of Sabbath-keeping on the 
part of the Pilgrims three facts, each of which is to their 
glory, and all of them combined to their surpassing glory, 
are made conspicuous : first, that they had a fixed princi- 
ple of Sabbath observance; second, that this fixed princi- 
ple had become hardened into a controlling habit ; and 
third, that under no temptation of bodily ease or material 
gain could they be betrayed into breaking their established 
rule. To obey is better than sacrifice, and these men 
obeyed. All through and everywhere they were consistent. 
Their action there on Clark's Island in remembering the 
Sabbath Day to keep it holy was a pattern cut from the 
same web as the action on the first Sunday at Cape Cod. 
Both were woven in the loom of conscience. Both showed 
the profound respect they had for the known will of the 
Almighty. 

We do not, however, get the full significance of this rest- 
ing on the Lord's Day, and devoting the hours to quiet 
meditation and communion with God, until we recall the 
situation, and weigh well the circumstances. On both occa- 
sions — the first Sabbath at the cape and this on the 
island — time was pressing. From the moment the ship 
came to anchor there was need of the utmost despatch by 
the colonists in determining on a place for their home. 
Each passing day increased the urgency. The arguments 
which had been advanced at the outset, and repeated over 
and over again for the speedy selection of a site some- 
where, grew more and more imperative with each succeed- 
ing sunset. The winter which had been approaching so 
rapidly was now upon them and increasing hourly in 
its intensity; rations were scant and fast diminishing; 
many of their number were ill and some were dead ; and the 
master of the vessel was increasingly impatient of delay 
and in no mood to tolerate inaction and listen to long par- 
leys. Besides all this, the land which they had come to 
explore lay spread out before them and within easy reach; 



214 THE PILGRIMS 

they had had the sunshine and warmth of Saturday in 
which to recuperate and put everything in order for the 
further pursuit of the object on wliich they were abroad; 
there were no crowds of onlookers to be injured by their 
example ; and every hour of the twenty-four in wliich they 
lingered after they were ready to move, meant more than 
gold to them. If there ever was a body of men on 
earth who were under constraint to lay religious scruples 
aside, and for once to play false even to deepest con- 
victions, it was these Pilgrims on that Sunday on Clark's 
Island. 

But this is the record : " On the Sabbath Day we rested." 
They knew the reasons there were for haste and felt the 
full force of them. They ached from the sting of the cold 
as others did. They were conscious of the impatience and 
suffering back in the ship. They were aware of the value 
of time to them, and permitted no moment which they felt 
at liberty to call their own to go to waste ; but appropriat- 
ing sacred time to their own worldly ends was quite another 
thing. God had said : " Remember the sabbath day to 
keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy 
work: but the seventh day is a sabbath unto the Lord thy 
Grod; in it thou shalt not do any work." That God had 
said it was enoughs Nothing could induce them to violate 
a plain precept of the Word. In reverent obedience to the 
divine law they paused and rested. As Dr. Cheever has 
well said : " It was a most wonderful consecration of all 
New England to God, this religious keeping of the first 
Sabbath Day spent upon its shores." Only, he might 
better have said, not New England alone, but the nation ; 
for what the Pilgrims did, as the event has proved, was not 
confined in its influence to the little group of states on our 
northeastern border, but has carried its blessing to the 
entire repubhc. It is eminently fit that members of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, in appreciation of an 
act which was to be at once so memorable and suggestive, 
should have cut into the face of the huge boulder which 
lies near the middle of the island, and under whose shelter 
tradition affirms that the Pilgrims conducted their simple 
worship, the simple but ever-to-be-cherished inscription: 



THE PILGRIMS 215 

" On the Sabboth Day wee rested." Few deeds in all his- 
tory are more worthy of commemoration by monument. 
To many it may seem to have been an exhibition of over- 
scrupulousness to keep the Sabbath as these men did on 
that day on Clark's Island. Perhaps it was. But who is 
to gainsay the suggestion that God kept the Pilgrims be- 
cause the Pilgrims kept God's laws? One day in seven, 
in which the tools of industry are dropped and the noise 
of mills is hushed and traffic ceases, and thoughts are given 
to the matters of God, and the soul and the hungers of the 
higher life are fed, seems to be wrought into the consti- 
tution of things as well as to lie at the heart of the economy 
of right living which has been outHned for us in the revela- 
tions which we have of the divine will. It may be that 
these men, after all, were under the guidance of a Spirit 
which makes no mistakes, and that in virtue of what some 
would call their hard-and-fast interpretation of the com- 
mandment they reached their end sooner than they would 
have done by an easy-going interpretation. The Sabbath 
was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Yes. 
But what was man made for? It is barely possible that 
when we have got a right idea of the true end and aim of 
man, we shall see that a somewhat stricter observance of 
the Sabbath than is at all popular of late, will better accord 
with the real interests of both individuals and communi- 
ties. These men kept the Sabbath and God kept them. It 
will be wiser for us to think there may be some very inti- 
mate connection between the two facts. In the matter of 
Sabbath-keeping, latter-day tendencies, it must be confessed, 
are not encouraging. There is need of the tonic of Pilgrim 
loyalty to the letter of the law. The spirit would be better 
observed if a little more regard were had to the letter. As 
the Mayflower Compact held in it an import and value 
touching the equal rights of men and the common duties 
of citizens quite beyond, it may be, any conception which 
the signers of that instrument entertained, so it may have 
been in the purpose of God that the striking observance 
of Sunday on Clark's Island by those Pilgrim explorers 
should be a great and unique object-lesson, not alone for 
the few people who could be crowded within the walls of a 



216 THE PILGRIMS 

small ship, but for their descendents and the world In all 
after times. Say what we will, better the strictness of the 
fathers, than the laxness of the children. 



VII 

Having observed the Sabbath in the way just indicated, 
on Monday morning, bright and early, the Pilgrims started 

out, though we may be very certain it was not 
Setting foot until, as was habitual with them, they had had 
on the fa- their morning devotions, in the search for a 
mous rock gj^g for their habitation. In the discussion to 

which reference has been made in a preceding 
paragraph concerning the essentials of a desirable location 
for settlement, it developed that these several conditions 
were thought to be necessary: a good harbor; enough 
cleared land to insure a crop of maize the first year; a 
plenty of pure water ; general healthf ulness ; the promise 
of sea food; and a place easy to be defended and main- 
tained in security. The question was soon to be decided 
whether the locality in which they then were, met all or 
the most of these requirements. This Is Bradford's account 
of what was discovered : " On Monday they sounded the 
harbor, and found it fit for shipping; and marched Into 
the land and found divers cornfields, and little running 
brooks — a place, as they supposed, fit for situation ; at 
least It was the best they could find, and the season and 
their present necessity made them glad to accept It." 
Goodwin, who knew every foot of ground In that region, 
says : " The harbor, if not excellent, was truly ' the best 
they could find ' between Cape Cod Harbor and Boston 
Bay ; there were the broad cornfields left by the Patuxets 
only three years before — the only cleared land known to 
have been thereabouts ; while a deliclously pure water filter- 
ing from the sandy background danced across the fields 
to the sea, forming the only group of brooks around 
Plymouth Bay ; the site was protected on the east by the 
harbor, on the south by a great brook In a ravine, on the 
west by an abrupt hill of a hundred and sixty-five feet 



THE PILGRIMS 217 

elevation, and on the remaining side was an open field ready 
for a palisade which would be covered by cannon on the 
hill." 

Recalling the passage from Bradford, it is to be noticed 
that no mention is made of any rock on which they landed, 
or crossed in making their landing. But the evidence both 
from documents now in existence and from well-authenti- 
cated tradition make it clear that the exploring party in 
going ashore, on December 21, 1620, set foot " upon 
a large rock," and that the rock on which they stepped 
was the Plymouth Rock of undying fame. It is the land- 
ing on this rock which is now celebrated as Forefathers' 
Day. 

The rock has had a curious history. As the town grew 
and shipping increased, wharves began to encroach on the 
site of the rock, and there was danger of its being cov- 
ered over. To prevent this an attempt was made to raise 
the rock. This was in 1775, and the effort resulted in 
splitting the boulder. The upper section was taken to the 
town square, and, as this occurred just as the Revolution 
was breaking out, it was deposited at the foot of a liberty 
pole, from which floated a flag that expressed the purpose 
of the colonies to have hberty or death. After remaining 
in that place for about sixty years, it was taken on one 
Fourth of July and carried in procession, and set down in 
front of Pilgrim Hall. Forty-six years later this detached 
piece of the rock was taken back to its rightful place and 
reunited with the larger piece, and the whole rock is now 
covered by a canopy, which rests on four columns, and is 
constructed of granite. This famous rock now presents, 
as it is supposed, very much the appearance it had when 
Standish and his associates walked across it on that ever- 
memorable morning when they rowed over from Clark's 
Island to the mainland. But though it is not mentioned in 
their writings, and in stepping upon it they were utterly 
unconscious of anything save getting to shore the best 
way they could, yet that rock has been made the symbol 
of all that the Pilgrim movement stood for in their own 
and in after ages. 

Only a single day was spent by the party in exploring 



218 THE PILGRIMS 

in the region. They saw enough to convince them that 
somewhere in that immediate vicinity a proper location for 
their settlement could be found. The long search was 
ended. It simply remained to enter and occupy. 



VIII 

On Tuesday the explorers returned to the ship. They 
had been absent since the preceding Wednesday. But it 

was cheering news which they brought. They 
From Cape j^g-d suffered great hardships, and their Hves 
Cod to jjg^j been in peril, but unlike the two parties 

Plymouth ^]^q jja,d gone before them, they had found a 

site which they could recommend for settlement. 
It was Plymouth. They did not have to name the place. 
That had been done for them. Fifteen years before, Cham- 
plain had sailed into the harbor and christened the local- 
ity. His christening was a passing incident. Later, only 
a half-dozen years before the coming of the Mayflower, 
Capt. John Smith explored the whole coast from eastern 
Maine to Cape Cod. He entered this same harbor. One 
of the results of his explorations was a map, drawn by him 
and said to be remarkably accurate, on which, set over 
against the spot where the exiles landed, was the name 
" Plimouth." Grateful for the kindness which they re- 
ceived at the last port from which they sailed, the Pilgrims, 
we may be sure, were only too glad to adopt the name they 
found already given to the place, and call their settlement 
New Plymouth. 

But though the party brought back good news, they 
were greeted with ;11 tidings. For during their absence 

death had entered their little circle and claimed 
Sorrow upon ^^q victims. Two days before the explorers 
sorrow j^ft, Edward Thompson had died. On the 

morning of the day of their departure, Jasper 
Moore had followed Thompson to his long home. Both 
were humble members of the colony. The next day after 
the party had left, Dorothy Bradford, the wife of the 
future governor, fell overboard and was drowned. The 



THE PILGRIMS 219 

following day, James Chilton passed away. Here were 
four deaths in quick succession, and two of them occurred 
during the absence of the party which had just come back 
from the discovery of Plymouth. It was enough to make 
bronzed faces turn pale and stout hearts quiver with pain. 
It was a bitter foretaste of still bitterer experiences to 
follow. But there was no drawing back from their self- 
appointed and divinely directed task. 

The master of the ship had declared that he would not 
leave the anchorage in which they then were until a safe 
harbor had been discovered. The report 
Weighing brought back by the last exploring party 
anchor satisfied him and met the views of the colo- 

nists. Hence as soon as all were ready, which 
was not until Friday, the anchor was lifted and sails set 
for the passage to Plymouth. Winds were adverse and 
the harbor was not made until the next day. But on 
Saturday, December 26, 1620, the Mayflower came to her 
moorings in Plymouth Harbor, and the Pilgrims, now at 
the end of their long journey, were face to face with a 
little section of the world which they were to sanctify by 
their presence and immortahze in history. 



II 



XI 

THE FIRST WINTER AT PLYMOUTH 



As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath 
shone to many — yea in some sort to our whole nation. 

William Bradford. 

Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of 
outcasts who landed at Plymouth are destined to influence the future of the 
world. — James Russell Lowell. 

Of all migrations of peoples the settlement of New England is pre- 
eminently the one in which the almighty dollar played the smallest part, 
however important it may since have become as a motive power. It was 
left for religious enthusiasm to achieve what commercial enterprise had 
failed to accomplish. — John Fiske. 

I regard it as a great thing for a nation to be able, as it passes through 
one sign after another of its zodiac pathway, in prosperity, in adversity, and 
at all times — to be able to look to an authentic race of founders, and a 
historical principle of institution — the extent and permanence of whose 
influence are of a kind and power — to kindle and feed the moral imagi- 
nation, move the capacious heart, and justify the intelligent wonder of the 
world. — Rurus Choate. 

"Wild was the day, the wintry sea 

Moaned sadly on New England strand, 
"When first the thoughtful and the free, 

Our fathers, trod the desert land. 

They httle thought how pure a Ught, 

With years should gather round that day: 

How love should keep their memories bright; 
How wide a realm their sons should sway. 

William Cullen Bryant. 

The sadness and pathos which some might read into the narrative are 
to me lost in victory. The triumph of a noble cause even at a great price is 
theme for rejoicing, not for sorrow, and the story of the Pilgrims is one of 
triumphant achievement. — Roger Wolcott. 



XI 

THE FIRST WINTER AT PLYMOUTH 

IN outward incident and impressiveness the landing 
of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock differed in no 
essential particular from many another attempt at 
colonization which history records. Yet this act was 
epoch-making. It was a turning-point in the progress of 
mankind. It gave new impulse and direction and hope to 
the strugghng masses of humanity, and made it evident that 
men who are determined to be free can somehow find a way 
to accomplish their object. From the hour when that land- 
ing became a demonstrated success, the hatefulness of the 
tyranny which persecutes for fidelity to intelligent and 
honest convictions, has seemed more hateful ; and the hero- 
ism which is willing to make all sacrifices and endure all 
hardships for the sake of conscience has seemed more 
heroic. Ever since that event, now lacking less than a 
score of years of being three centuries ago, when the 
beacon lights of faith and liberty were kindled anew on 
the bleak shores of New England, the wisdom of stand- 
ing by principle and taking wide views of duty, and 
then trusting to the future for vindication, has had a 
warmer commendation in the sober judgment of thought- 
ful minds. 



When the Mayjlower reached the harbor of Plymouth 
nothing was settled except that somewhere in that locahty 
the Pilgrims were to build their homes and lay the founda- 



224 THE PILGRIMS 

tion of their state. They were through with their wide 
explorations ; but it was still to be determined whether 
their settlement should be in the vicinity of 
Choosing a i]^q rock across which the previous landing 
site for ij^^j jjggn made, or elsewhere. Hence further 

building examination of the region was necessary. 

The ship reached the harbor, it will be re- 
called, on Saturday. On the Sabbath they rested. The 
same reasons for haste as on the preceding Sabbath still 
existed, and the same eager desire to see what was before 
them and be at their work ; but — they rested. 

On Monday the master of the ship, aided by three or 
four sailors, took a party — presumably all of the men who 
were able to go — ashore. This party went westward, fol- 
lowing along the coast but keeping within the woods, for 
seven or eight miles. They found " four or five small run- 
ning brooks of very sweet fresh water," but no navigable 
river. The soil they judged to be rich. In the forests 
there was a great variety of trees and many kinds of herbs. 
Clay of an excellent quality seemed to be in abundance; 
and what they never failed to magnify — " the best water 
that ever we drank." It is evident that these searchers, on 
this as on former occasions, had a quick eye for every- 
thing about them. The days were short ; but night found 
the party weary, and once more aboard the boat. 

The next day the same region was explored still more 
thoroughly. The party, some by land and some in the 
shallop, pushed their way as far as a stream, which, in 
honor of the master of the ship, they named Jones River. 
They went up this stream a number of miles. It was so 
shallow, however, that they saw it would be of no use to 
them except at high tide. The place was what is now 
Kingston ; and it had many features to commend it to 
the colonists. But it was at considerable distance from 
good fishing-ground; was deeply wooded, and thus would 
expose them to attacks by the Indians ; and clearing up 
the land and getting it ready for planting was a task quite 
beyond their strength at that time. 

On the same day it appears that the thoughts of some of 
the party turned to Clark's Island; and a fresh examina- 



THE PILGRIMS 225 

tion was made of its advantages. The attractions of the 
island were that it was " a place defensible and of great 
security." It was at a safe distance from the mainland. 
It was well wooded. It was too well wooded, in fact ; for 
as in the locality of Kingston it would be difficult to clear 
enough for a crop of corn. Another objection was that 
there was no fresh water, and they feared what might hap- 
pen to them in the heat of summer. 

Night found them all in the ship again. Two days 
given to this kind of exploration and comparison of 
locahties seemed to them enough ; and there was a general 
understanding that on the next day they would conclude 
the business by fixing definitely and finally on some point 
of settlement. 

Wednesday dawned upon them. It was to be a moment- 
ous day. As was their custom, these Pilgrims " called on 
God for direction." Then they went ashore. Three places 
were in their minds — the island, though this place seems 
to have been practically ruled out before leaving the ship, 
the region of Kingston, and the vicinity of the rock. 
Which should it be.^* The question was to be submitted to 
vote. The majority were to rule. The conclusion was 
reached " by most voices to set on the mainland, on the 
first place, on a high ground, where there was a great deal 
of land cleared," which had already been " planted with 
corn three or four years " before, and through which 
there ran " a very sweet brook," and in which there were 
" many delicate springs of as good water as can be 
drunk." This place also afforded " a harbor " for their 
*' shallops and boats," while the brook promised them 
" much good fish in their season." The urgent question 
— the question which had been in the minds of some of the 
leaders for years, and which for the last few weeks had 
been almost a life-and-death question with all of them, was 
fully decided. The spot where the Pilgrims were to fix 
their habitation and work out their destiny was forever 
settled. Years later, when the affairs of the colony were 
thought to be in a crisis, the question of removing or 
remaining where they were was to be a subject of debate; 
but there was to be no change. The decision given by the 

15 



226 THE PILGRIMS 

" most voices " on that Wednesday morning had in it the 
force of a divine decree and was final. 

The reasons why the island and the region of Kingston 
were ruled out have already been given. The reasons, too, 
why the locality close to the rock carried the day have 
been incidentally put in evidence. The " high ground " 
the " delicious springs," the " sweet brooks," the " deal of 
land cleared," the good " harbor," the " much fish " to be 
taken in their season, the command their " ordnance " 
would have " all round about," the outlook the place 
afforded " into the Bay," and the ample elbow-room, land- 
ward and seaward, which they would have if they pitched 
their tents and drove down their stakes on that spot, were 
all factors in the determination of their choice. That they 
chose wisely has been the verdict of after-times. Had the 
coast been thoroughly explored, better harbors and better 
soil might have been discovered ; but for the Pilgrims, 
when all things are considered — their weakness, the fatal- 
ity which had overtaken the Indians in their immediate 
vicinity, the lands all ready for planting, and the little 
there was in their situation and surroundings to excite 
cupidity, there was no better place in all the world than 
Plymouth. 

n 

Wednesday, December 30, the day on which the deci- 
sion was reached to settle at Plymouth, operations were 

commenced. About twenty of the men who 
Beginning j^^j come over in the morning to vote on the 
to build question of a site, determined to go to work 

at once and remain on the ground over night. 
Rude preparations were made, or rather attempted, for 
the security and comfort of the party ; but what could 
be done in so short a time proved wholly inadequate to 
their needs. In the morning, all who were well enough 
to leave the ship and join in the labor of building were to 
go ashore and lend a hand. A violent storm arose, and 
those who were in the boat could not get to land, and those 
who were on the land could not reach the boat. It was a 



THE PILGRIMS 227 

trying time. The men in the ship were impatient to be 
doing something, and those on the land were wet and cold 
and hungry, for their shelter had been very poor, and 
they were without food. Toward noon, however, " the 
shallop went off with much ado." She carried " provis- 
ions " to the well-nigh famished and frozen men who had 
volunteered to stay on shore. Something to eat must have 
been very welcome. But this was not the end of the em- 
barrassments. The wind was so strong that the shallop 
could not return to the ship. All the next day the storm 
continued in such fury that there could be no intercourse 
between those on board the vessel and those on land. It 
was not until Saturday that weather conditions moderated 
sufficiently to permit going back and forth between the 
ship and the shore. Then as many as could went ashore, 
and began to cut down and carry timber and gather ma- 
terials for building. 

How simple the narrative of the doings of these men! 
How matter-of-fact it all seems ! It was just the drudgery 
of the common laborer — hard, wearisome toil day in and 
day out. It was worse, for there were no beasts of burden 
to do their hauling. Altogether unpoetic were their tasks 
— save that there is always a strain of poetry in the 
humblest duty faithfully done. For the most part they 
were wholly unconscious, too, of what they were actually 
doing. Using their short days, and catching what sun- 
shine there was between those fierce winter storms, they 
thought they were just building themselves a few houses 
in which to dwell. They were doing this, but how much 
more! In the first tree they felled, they were opening out 
a resplendent highway for civil as well as religious liberty. 
The first shovelful of earth they lifted was so much prep- 
aration for laying broad and deep the foundations of a 
vast and beneficent republic. They were not thinking of 
wealth, but of a shelter from the storm, and a hearthstone 
around which they might gather, and a quiet retreat, far 
from the strife of tongues, where they might commune with 
each other and worship God unmolested. They were think- 
ing just as little of wide political influence and power; 
though they were not without hope at times that something 



228 THE PILGRIMS 

helpful to the Kingdom might grov out of their move- 
ment and example. But God, who was behind them and 
around them and in them, was thinking of many things. 
Beyond the horizon which shut in their narrow human 
vision He saw a mighty empire emerging — an empire 
with laws and institutions and customs and hfe informed 
and dominated by such a spirit of equal rights and justice 
as was never before seen in any nation on earth. They 
" felled and carried timber " to provide themselves " stuff 
for building ; " but they were building more stately man- 
sions than they knew. 

ni 

Before they began erecting their houses, the Pilgrims 
had a general idea of the wa}'^ in which their little town 
was to be laid out, and of the order in which 
Plan of their successive buildings were to be put up. 

the town 'j'j^g immediate exigency of the settlement 
seemed to call for nineteen, or as some say, 
eighteen houses ; for by assigning the single men to the 
circles which could most conveniently receive them, the 
whole colony could be accommodated by this number of 
famihes. A street running back from the water to the hill 
^was marked out, and the houses were to stand on either side 
of the street. Each family was to build its own house, 
and the location of each was to be determined by lot. The 
street is still there, and it is now known as Leyden Street. 

In addition to these residences for the several families, 
the plan on which the Pilgrims were proceeding required 
the construction of what they called a " common-house." 
It seemed advisable to put this up at once, in order that 
there might be a place for shelter and storage of goods. 
What with inclement weather and sickness and accidents 
by fire, though it had been in partial use before the end of 
that time, it took a month to get this small rough struc- 
ture of twenty by twenty ready for service. To complete 
their outfit of buildings, there was to be a platform on the 
hill — first a platform and then a fort — on which their 
guns could be mounted. Glimpses which were caught now 



THE PILGRIMS 229 

and then of Indians prowling about, and evidences which 
they had of their nearness to them on occasions when they 
were not seen, naturally hurried work on this military 
defense. In a little more than two months two larere 
cannon, one weighmg fifteen hundred pounds and the other 
twelve hundred, and still " another piece that lay on shore " 
whose weight is not given, with two smaller pieces weighing 
each about two hundred pounds, were placed in position, 
and made ready to do execution in the hour of need. 

IV 

Only seven of the nineteen houses were built, and the first 
one of them to be completed was turned into a temporary 

hospital. For, in spite of all they could do, 
Sickness ^-j^j^g ^f disaster and desolation kept rolling 
and death in on these devoted Pilgrims. The refrain of 

their story from the closing days of December 
till the closing days of March, when the sun began to 
mount higher in the sky, and the buds to swell, and the air 
to have some softness in its caress, was death. Brave, 
sweetly patient, faithful, at times not quite assured of 
what the outcome of it all was to be, but confident in God, 
it was yet but a dirge-Hke music which rolled through the 
souls of the men and women of this httle stricken com- 
munity. December saw six of them fold their hands and 
go hence ; January eight ; February seventeen ; and March 
thirteen. Governor Carver followed in April, and Mrs. 
Carver in June. Before their first year was ended, so 
many of those who had set out in the Mayflower for the 
voyage to America had gone to their final account that 
the obituary Hst was carried up to fifty-one — just one- 
half of the hundred and two. Arber, in his classification, 
adds the two children, Oceanus Hopkins and Peregrine 
White, who were born before the Mayflower reached Ply- 
mouth, to the passenger list with which the vessel left 
England, and in this way increases the number to one 
hundred and four. But he puts the record of deaths at 
fifty-three, which leaves the survivors at fifty-one, as just 
given. 



230 THE PILGRIMS 



How explain a death-roll so startling? What were the 
causes of this wide-sweeping and fatal malady? The an- 
swer hes on the surface, and yet no single 
Causes of statement covers the case, 
sickness First of all it must be remembered that the 

colonists were quite unused to the kind of life 
they had to meet on shipboard, and to the exposures and 
hardships which they had to encounter on landing on an 
uninhabited shore. For twelve years the work of the most 
of them had been indoors ; and they had been wholesomely 
fed and well sheltered from storm and heat and cold. To 
be thrust from comfortable homes and quiet employment 
in Holland into the unexplored wilds of North America 
in the winter season was a change ominous of disaster. 
Then the long voyage, the narrow accommodations which 
their small ship must have offered to so large a company, 
and their limited diet, predisposed them to serious dis- 
tempers and ailments. On reaching Cape Cod, a large 
majority of the company must have been in condition to 
invite disease. Nor must we overlook in our search for the 
causes of so much fatal sickness the wading from boat to 
shore and back again, which was necessary through all of 
the first month after landing, the hard tramping, often 
when faint from hunger, through rain and sleet and snow ; 
the camping-out and sleeping in wet clothes on the cold, 
damp earth, with little or no protection against wind and 
storm, and the anxiety which would inevitably grow out 
of the situation in which all were placed. If to this list 
there be added the lack of " houses and other comforts," 
such as suitable remedies and convenient places for min- 
istering to the sick, and delicacies to nourish the feeble 
and tempt the appetites of the convalescent, the explana- 
tion of the illness which befell the Pilgrims during the first 
winter of their life at Plymouth becomes so'impressive that 
one wonders how any of them survived. 

Here is a passage copied from a paragraph in " Mourt's 
Relation " which throws a flood of light on our immediate 



THE PILGRIMS 231 

question. It has reference to experiences while the May- 
flower was still l3^ing at Cape Cod. " The discommodious- 
ness of the harbor did much hinder us, for we could 
neither go to, nor come from, the shore but at high water ; 
which was much to our hindrance and hurt. For often- 
times they waded to the middle of the thigh, and often to 
the knees to go and come from land. Some did it neces- 
sarily, and some of their own pleasure; but it brought to 
most, if not to all, coughs and colds — the weather proving 
suddenly cold and stormy — which afterwards turned to 
the scurvy, whereof many died." Another passage, relat- 
ing to what happened to the explorers when out in search 
of a site for settlement, is to the same effect. " So we 
marched some while in the woods, some while in the sands, 
and other while in the water up to the knees." A sample 
of frequent statements is : "It blowed and did snow all 
that day and night, and froze withal. Some of our people 
that are dead took the original of their death there." 
Recall the incident of the twenty men, who, after the ques- 
tion of a site had been determined, resolved to stay on 
shore and go at once about the work of building. Night 
overtook them before a shelter could be made ready. To 
increase the discomfort, the rain began to pour, and there 
was no relief for them until the storm had worn itself out. 

True the women and children were not exposed to these 
nights abroad in the woods and the pelting storms and 
these freezing turns in the weather. But what they gained 
by not being out in rain and sleet and storm and where the 
air was stinging cold, they lost by being closely confined 
in the ship. The deaths among the women show that they 
suffered even more than the men from the prevaihng 
scourge. 

The two diseases which were so fatal were scurvy and 
lung troubles. Pneumonia was no doubt the cause of not 
a few of these deaths. Rheumatic tendencies were seriously 
aggravated by what had to be endured. Bradford came 
near dying in consequence of an acute attack of this sort. 
But the fatal diseases were scurvy and consumption. 



232 THE PILGRIMS 



VI 

The startling death-roll, however, does not tell the whole 
story. A half-hundred died, but of the half-hundred who 
lived many were brought nigh unto death. In 
Sufferings their time of "most distress," so Bradford 
of sur- relates, there were but six or seven persons left 

vivors y^Y^Q were in condition to care for the sick and 

helpless. There, in " the depth of winter," with 
their scant resources and their fearful exposures, " infected 
with the scurvy and other diseases " which their long 
voyage and lack of suitable accommodations had brought 
upon them, members of the colony were passing through 
the Valley of the Shadow, " sometimes two or three of a 
day," with their nearest and dearest ones too ill to minister 
to them in their closing hours, or even to wave them fare- 
well as they were borne forth on their long journey. Two 
of those who were so tenderly helpful that they furnished 
*• a rare example and worthy to be remembered," but who 
were " so upheld of the Lord " that they were not " in- 
fected either with the sickness or lameness " were WilUam 
Brewster and Miles Standish. Well was it for the colony 
that God spared them. 

Of the seventeen wives surviving after the death of Mrs. 
Bradford, only four were left to answer to their names 
when a twelvemonth had passed. Thirteen out of the 
twenty-four married men were gone. Single men, male 
servants, sons or other relatives, contributed twenty-one 
to this first year's death-roll. Five of the twelve children 
succumbed to disease. Four households escaped the infec- 
tion, but four were completely wiped out. Each of the 
remaining sixteen lost one or more of its members. They 
had made no covenant with the inhabitants of the land, 
and, if they had not broken down their altars, they had in 
no sense bowed to them; yet through all the months of 
that desolate and awful winter, Plymouth was a veritable 
Bochim. Had it not been for their firm resolve, their faith 
in God, and the help they received from on high, the Pil- 
grims must have wept themselves into utter despair. The 



THE PILGRIMS 233 

dead were buried, not on Burial Hill — the spot now so 
sacred to such a large number of devout and patriotic 
Americans — but on Coles Hill. This is a little elevation 
of land not far from the rock. In fear lest the Indians 
should discover what inroads had been made on their ranks, 
and how ill-prepared the remnant of the little band must 
be to resist an attack, the graves were made level with the 
ground, and the whole plat was smoothed over and sown 
with grain. This is tradition, but the tradition is well 
authenticated. 

VII 

It was exceedingly mournful. Still this was only the 
common fate of colonies seeking to make a permanent 

lodgment within our harsh northern latitudes. 
A common B^ck in 1535-36, Cartier and his associates 
experience [^ self-exile attempted to stem the rigors of a 
of colonies ^old season in Canada. This is Parkman's 

account of it : "A malignant scurvy broke 
out among them. Man after man went down before the 
hideous disease, till twenty-five were dead, and only three or 
four were left in health. The sound were too few to attend 
the sick, and the wretched sufferers lay in helpless despair, 
dreaming of the sun and the vines of France. The ground, 
hard as flint, defied their feeble efforts, and, unable to bury 
their dead, they liid them in snowdrifts." Of the seventy- 
nine men who remained at the mouth of the St. Croix 
under De Monts, in 1604—05, thirty-nine died before relief 
could reach them, and many more were near to death. 
Champlain in his first winter at Quebec, 1608—09, when he 
laid the foundation of the town, had twenty-eight men with 
him. The middle of May found twenty of these men dead, 
with only four of the remaining eight in condition to do 
anything. Even in Virginia it was not otherwise. Of the 
one hundred and five who were landed at Jamestown in May 
of 1607, and left there to be the nucleus of a settlement by 
Captain Newport when he sailed back to England, more 
than half, so says Fiske, were dead before the end of Septem- 
ber. Here it was heat rather than cold and a bad location, 



234 THE PILGRIMS 

wliich did the mischief. It is still true, however, that more 
than half the colony succumbed to disease and went hence 
inside of four months after reaching the New World. 

In each of these instances, save that of De Monts at St. 
Croix, the ratio of the dying to the living was greater — 
in some far greater — than at Plymouth, while at St. 
Croix the dead, as among the Pilgrims, was almost exactly 
one-half of the whole number. But the remarkable fact 
is that in the cases here cited the groups were made up en- 
tirely of men, and not of men, women, and children. Being 
made up wholly of men, and chiefly of men used to the sea, it 
is reasonable to suppose that they were accustomed to hard- 
ship and privations, and could better stand the brunt of 
storm, and the icy touch of the hand of winter or the torrid 
heats of summer, than artisans drawn from the quiet re- 
treats of a Dutch city, or toilers from the rural districts 
of England. Still this did not prove to be the case. It 
cannot be otherwise than that the moral quality of the 
Pilgrims must have counted for much in the disheartening 
struggle against disease and death. Be this as it may, 
however, and laying no emphasis on comparisons, these 
are all records to bring a pallor to the cheek, and show us 
what first things in conquering nature and building up 
the institutions of civilized society really cost. It is never 
anywhere a May-game business, but an undertaking to 
put faith under bonds, and challenge courage — an under- 
taking to tax head and hand, heart and soul, to the 
utmost. 

VIII 

It is, indeed, over against this dark background of 
pain and sorrow and disappointment and death that we 

must study the Pilgrims if we would under- 
Shows stufE stand them and appreciate their faith and 
of which pluck. 

the Pilgrims Rufus Choate, in one of his famous orations, 
were made }jag g^ passage in which he sets in contrast the 

courage and fidelity to duty of this little band 
of colonists, there on the remote edge of the storm-beaten 



THE PILGRIMS 235 

coast of New England, and the enthusiastic and deter- 
mined devotion of Leonidas and his small following of 
three hundred warriors at the pass of Thermopylae, face 
to face with the Persians. The Greeks were trained sol- 
diers. Disciphne had made their sinews like steel. They 
were in a temper to front the force of any attack which 
might be made upon them. Heroic traditions of the past 
inspired them. The conscious gaze and applause of their 
fellow-countrymen nerved them to the hmit of capacity. 
In addition to this, their struggle was to be short and 
sharp. The Pilgrims were a promiscuous company of men, 
women, and children. They were smitten, bereaved, and 
before the first year was over reduced to one-half of their 
original number by disease. They were remote from the 
world and alone in their desolation. The eyes which were 
upon them and the hearts which sympathized with them 
were few, and no one was far-sighted enough to see the 
end of their hardships. The contrast is to the advantage 
of the obscure and neglected colony. Well it might be. 
History is not without many striking instances of con- 
secration to worthy causes and fortitude under trials, but 
the past affords no exact parallel to the patient and sub- 
hme endurance of these God-filled souls. 



IX 

The Pilgrims had their chapters of mishaps and narrow 
escapes, as well as their volumes of tragic experience and 

sorrow. 
Mishaps Of the four men sent out to cut wild grass 

and narrow f^j. thatch, as the common-house approached 
escapes t^g ^^^^^ f^^. j-Qofing^ ^^^^ pg^-^j. g^o^^ ^nd 

John Goodman, strayed off into the woods and 
were lost. Diligent search was made for them by the other 
two, but they could not be found. Report of what had 
happened was made to the colony. It was raining, but 
Carver took several men with him and continued the hunt. 
No trace of the missing men could be discovered. The 
night which followed was an anxious one, for all feared 



236 THE PILGRIMS 

that the lost men might have been captured by the Indians. 
The next morning a much larger company, well armed, 
renewed the search. The effort was fruitless. Meantime 
the two men, who had not fallen into the hands of the 
Indians, but had been led astray by a pair of dogs they 
had with them catching sight of a deer and following it 
off into the woods, wandered about in hopeless bewilder- 
ment until night set in and arrested further attempts to 
ascertain their whereabouts and get back home. At dusk 
the rain turned to sleet and snow. There was no shelter. 
The men were in a pitiable situation. Soon wolves began 
to howl about them. In case of an attack by these wild 
beasts, there was no help for them but climbing a tree. 
The dreaded attack was not made. The wolves drew off. 
Then the poor fellows might venture to move. As this 
was the only way they could keep from freezing, they 
spent the night walking about. When morning came, they 
renewed their endeavors to find out where they were and 
make their way back to the settlement. It took them all 
day. When they did return they were in a sad plight. 
Goodman's feet were frost-bitten and badly swollen, and 
he suffered from lameness. " It was a long while after, 
ere he was able to go." The experience was a sorry one, 
and it subtracted a unit from the working force of the 
colony at a time when every man counted. 

Following close on the heels of the anxiety occasioned 
by the failure of Goodman and Brown to turn up when 
they were expected, there was another scare. This was on 
Sunday morning. As the search for the wanderers on the 
preceding Friday afternoon and all day Saturday had 
been in vain, the fear was general that the two men had 
fallen victims to the craft and cruelty of the savages. 
Tidings of what had happened on shore, and of the grave 
apprehensions which were felt there, had been brought to 
the ship on Saturday night by returning laborers. It is 
not difficult to imagine the consternation which filled all 
breasts in the little company, the talk that went on, 
and the dreams which disturbed the broken slumbers of the 
night. In apparent confirmation of all they most dreaded, 
the early risers on the vessel, looking across the waters of 



THE PILGRIMS 237 

the harbor, saw the common-house in flames. Only one 
inference could be drawn — the Indians had set the build- 
ing on fire. Emboldened, so the reasoning ran, by their 
success in capturing a couple of their white invaders, they 
had made a determined assault on the settlement, applied 
the torch to the half-completed structure, and led away 
or killed all the members of the company who were on 
land. What a relief it must have been to ascertain that 
the fire originated, not in the malice of savage hearts, but 
by an accidental spark, and that the damage, though the 
winds were high and helping hands were few and feeble, 
was only slight. It had been planned to have as many as 
possible go ashore and worship in the common-house on 
tliis Sabbath, but the fire prevented the carrying-out of 
the arrangement. Still, as they thought of their two com- 
panions back again, of the groundlessness of their fears 
of Indian treachery and assault, of the safety of their 
property, and of precious lives preserved, the heart of 
every Pilgrim must have swelled with gratitude ; and 
" Thank God " must have been the warm ejaculation 
which went up like a song of grateful praise from every 
lip. A week later, on the last Sabbath and the last day 
of January, all who were able gathered on shore, and for 
the first time held their worship in the common-house. 

In connection with this fire in the thatch of the common- 
house at that early hour on Sunday morning, when the 
wind was blowing a gale, one trembles at thought of a 
possible loss which would have been more serious than the 
loss of any number of buildings. When those flames broke 
out the floor was covered with beds. Carver and Bradford 
were lying on a couple of them critically ill. Who else 
was there in the same sore straits we are not told. To add 
to the peril from flames and sickness, the loaded muskets of 
the company were in that room. Stored in the same room, 
too, most likely, was a part of their supply of powder. 
But the two leaders somehow made a hurried escape, the 
fire did not reach the guns and ammunition, and there 
was no explosion. Well might Winslow say : " Blessed be 
God, there was no harm done." For one cannot contem- 
plate such a disaster as might have befallen Carver and 



238 THE PILGRIMS 

Bradford then and there, without feehng that the sud- 
den death of these men, in the circumstances in which they 
then were, would have brought the whole enterprise to 
an end. 



There are other matters of grave importance as well as 
of permanent interest which, in their incipiency at least, 
naturally fall into place in the story of the 
The return experiences of the Pilgrims during their first 
of the winter at Plymouth. But as these topics are 

Mayflower ^q have an independent and orderly treat- 
ment in the pages which follow, no further 
reference to them seems to be necessary in this connection. 
There is one event, however, whose record belongs here and 
nowhere else. It is the sailing away of the Mayjiower on 
the homeward voyage. Few incidents in the history of 
the colony are more tenderly pathetic ; few show the 
resolute purpose, the high courage, the steadfast faith, 
and the moral elevation of the colonists in a better light. 

The ship got off on Thursday, the fifteenth of April. 
She had been lying at anchor in the harbor of Plymouth 
since Saturday, the twenty-sixth of December. This 
was almost four months. The sight of her must have 
become a familiar and cherished object to the anxious 
toilers on the shore. But why did the vessel not take her 
departure at an earlier date? The impatience of Captain 
Jones with what seemed to him the fastidiousness of the 
Pilgrims in choosing a site for settlement, and his im- 
plied, if not open, threat to dump the whole party and 
their goods down anywhere on the shore and sail away 
and leave them to their fate, if they did not act promptly, 
will be recalled. What made him willing to lengthen out 
his stay to more than a hundred days after a " place for 
habitation " had been found and occupied.'' These reasons 
are given by Bradford : 

It was near the end of December before the colonists 
were in condition to take any of the freight of the ship on 



THE PILGRIMS 239 

shore. The fire in the thatch of the common-house delayed 
preparations for receiving goods on land, and drove some 
who were weak and ill back to the ship for shelter. Very 
soon sickness began to increase among them to an alarm- 
ing extent, and the people were practically helpless. Con- 
sidering the facts — so many smitten by disease and so 
many already dead — the governor and his advisers 
thought it wise to retain the ship until they could see how 
matters were to turn with them. The Indians were a 
menace which they were not able to dismiss from their 
minds, and until they could get things on shore in a posture 
for defense, it seemed necessary to have the vessel near at 
hand for a safe refuge, even though this precaution would 
add a considerable sum to the cost of transportation. 
Besides — a most conclusive reason for delay — the 
diseases which had seized and prostrated so many of the 
passengers, laid hold on the men, with the result that 
many had died, and many who had not passed away were 
sick and weak, and the captain was afraid to put to sea 
until his men were better and the weather signs were more 
auspicious. 

But the time came at length when the ship which had 
brought them sa-fely across the sea, which had been their 
home for so long, within whose narrow walls many earnest 
councils had been held, plans formed, an immortal state 
paper adopted, the sick nursed, children born, the eyes of 
the dead tenderly closed, and the last tributes paid to 
departed associates, was to lift her anchor, spread her 
sails, catch a favoring breeze, drop over the eastern 
horizon, and fade out of view. Should she set her prow 
to the dear old home-land with only the master and his 
remnant of a crew aboard .f" Did Carver and Bradford, 
both of them worn with sickness and care, and the governor 
unconsciously close to the border line of life, did Brewster 
and Winslow, did Standish and Hopkins, think it better 
to let the vessel go and leave them there, cut off from all 
chances of retreat, from all resources save those which were 
found in themselves, to keep up the struggle for a foot- 
hold on that bleak shore? If the leaders were still brave 
and persistent, was there no one in the rank and file of 



240 THE PILGRIMS 

their followers who had become faint-hearted and ready to 
quit? 

Early and late the faith and pluck, the high resolve and 
absolute consecration of the Pilgrims were put to many 
and severe tests. Few of them could have been more trying 
and severe than standing there on the uplands on that 
mid-April day, with the graves of their beloved at their 
feet, with an unbroken forest behind them, with no white 
neighbors within a sweep of hundreds of miles, and seeing 
the ship in which they might all of them have embarked 
sailing away and leaving them to a duty from which there 
was no escape. 

That act set the seal to their purpose to do and die In 
furtherance of the holy project for which they had crossed 
the sea. 

James Russell Lowell looked on this scene with a poet's 
eye, and he cavight the significance of it, and set it forth 
as the crowning testimony to the valor and unconquerable 
determination of the Pilgrims. He says : " Surely, if the 
Greek could boast his Thermopylae, where three hundred 
men fell in resisting the Persians, we may well be proud of 
our Plymouth Rock, where a handful of men, women, and 
children, not merely faced, but vanquished winter, famine, 
the wilderness, and the more invincible storge that drew 
them back to the green island far away. They found no 
lotus growing upon the surly shore, the taste of which 
could make them forget their little native Ithaca ; nor were 
they so wanting to themselves in faith as to burn their 
ships, but could see the fair west wind belly the homeward 
sail, and then turn unrepining to grapple with the terrible 
Unknown." Not a Pilgrim went back on the returning 
Mayflower. 



XII 
MAKING A LIVING 



With great difficulty we have preserved our lives ; insomuch as when I 
look back upon our condition, and weak means to preserve the same, I 
rather admire at God's mercy and providence in our preservation, than that 
no greater things have been effected by us. But though our beginning hath 
been . . . raw, small, and difficult, . . . yet the same God that hath hitherto 
led us through the former, I hope will raise means to accomplish the latter. 
Not that we altogether, or principally propound profit to be the main end of 
that we have undertaken, but the glory of God, and the honor of our Country. 

Edward Winslow. 

The London partners sent out no provisions and very few goods. A 
scarcity of food, often extreme, continued to a greater or less extent for the 
first four years. The agricultural arrangements of the Colony were as yet 
very imperfect, and the chief dependence during all that period was on 
corn purchased of the Indians. . . . The clams with which the harbor of 
Plymouth abounded were also an essential resource. At certain seasons 
fish were plenty; but for some time the Colonists were so unprovided as to 
have neither nets nor other tackle with which to take them, nor salt to pre- 
serve them. — Richard Hildreth. 

They worked against tremendous odds there on that barren coast; 
but they wrung a living from it almost from the first, and year by 
year patiently learned to succeed at the hard thing they had undertaken. 

WooDROW Wilson. 

The first years of the residence of Puritans in America were years of 
great hardship and affliction ; it is an error to suppose that this short season 
of distress was not promptly followed by abundance and happiness. 

George Bancroft. 



XII 

MAKING A LIVING 

WHEN the fateful winter was over, and the precious 
dead were buried, and the Mayflower had sailed 
away to the home-land, the surviving Pilgrims, 
bating no jot of heart or hope, but still determined to push 
their enterprise right on to a successful conclusion, found 
several very serious and pressing problems on their hands. 
To begin with they had to make a living. 



Governor Carver and his wife, and a few others, did not 
die till after the departure of the ship early in April. But 

at the end of the first year, as has been showa, 
The supply there remained only fifty-one of the colonists, 
producing Xhis group of fifty-one was made up of eleven 
*°'*^® men who had been married, though seven of 

them were now widowers, six single men, four 
wives, ten sons or male relatives, seven daughters or female 
relatives, five male servants, one female servant, and seven 
children of whom five were boys and two were girls. In 
scanning this list it is easy to see that the supply-producing 
members of the company were not many. On these few 
devolved the task of supporting the whole body. Day by 
day, through summer and winter, and year after year, 
these workers with absolutely no experience in the larger 
part of the activities in which they were to engage and the 
life they were to live, with few available resources, and with 
small succor to reach them from abroad, were to secure food, 



244 THE PILGRIMS 

clothing', shelter for themselves and all dependent upon 
them, and whatever else might be necessary to the mainte- 
nance of self-respect and propriety in their domestic and 
social relations. It was an arduous task to face. 

To the colonists who had Uved through the winter the 
opening of spring brought improved health, fresh encour- 
agement, and a fair chance to get on their feet. 
The cheer They planted corn, and though the yield was 
of spring small, yet with the meal which this first crop 
furnished, and the fish which they caught, and 
the ducks, and " the great store of wild turkeys," and the 
deer secured, they " had all things in good plenty." Letters 
full of satisfaction and hope were sent back to friends in 
England- The outlook was bright. Houses enough to 
answer the needs of all for shelter had been built. They were 
comfortably clothed. The seed brought over in the ship, 
and from which they expected to raise " wheat and peas " 
" came not to good ; " still they had sufficient food in store 
or in prospect for the coming months, and they looked for- 
ward to the approaching winter without misgiving. Their 
hearts could not have ceased aching; and there were mo- 
ments, no doubt, when tides of memory swept over their 
souls and they were in the deep waters ; but they were 
steadfast and confident. Each succeeding sunrise was a 
fresh prophecy of brighter mornings to dawn. Things were 
coming their way. 

II 

Not yet, however, had these rare spirits been sufficiently 
disciplined in the school of disappointment and bitter, bewil- 
dering sorrow. The skies, so bright in those 
More disci- mellow autumn days, were again to be shrouded 
pline in jjj ^h^ gloom of night, and charged with fierce 
store electric storms. The day was not yet at 

hand. 

On November 21 — just a year to a day after the 
Mayflower had come to anchor in the harbor of the future 
Provincetown, the Fortune arrived at Plymouth. She came 
from the Merchant Adventurers, and brought Robert Cush- 



THE PILGRIMS 245 

man, who was over on business, and thirty-five new settlers. 
The voyage had been an extraordinarily long one — 

between four and five months — and all on 
The arrival board were reduced to a sore pUght. Instead 
of the Qf bringing anything, except a Uttle clothing. 

Fortune ^q bg}p ^^^e colonists, the coming of this ship 

meant simply thirtj'^-five more mouths to be fed 
and thirty-five more heads to be sheltered, and thirty-five 
more bodies to be covered. In concluding his account 
of this accession to the colony, Bradford makes the very 
natural comment : " The plantation was glad of this ad- 
dition of strength, but could have wished that many of 
them had been in better condition, and all of them better 
furnished with provisions." To add to the perplexities of 
the case, the newcomers had in them very little of the spirit 
and purpose of the Pilgrims. " For most of them were 
lusty young men, and many of them wild enough, who little 
considered whither, or about what they went." Good raw 
material, it may be; but not just the kind of stuff to 
measure up to the present situation. 

So soon as the Fortune had sailed away, account of stock 
was taken, the fear of famine was looked squarely in the 

face, and the best preparations possible were 
Famine made to avert it. " The Governor and his asso- 

threatened ciates having disposed these late comers into 

several families, as they best could, took an 
exact account of all their provisions in store, and propor- 
tioned the same to the number of persons, and found that it 
would not hold out above six months at half allowance, and 
hardly that. And they could not well give less this winter- 
time till fish came again. So they presently put to half 
allowance, one as well as another, what began to be hard, 
but they bore it patiently under hope of supply." With 
all their care, however, in allotting food to individuals and 
limiting the amount each was to receive, starvation pressed 
the colony hard and threatened its utter annihilation. 
Month by month through the long, trying winter the cords 
of want were drawn closer and closer about them. May 
found the handful of meal in the barrel well-nigh spent, and 
the little oil in the cruse exhausted. It was a sorry con- 



246 THE PILGRIMS 

dition, and one which must have taxed to the utmost the 
faith of the Pilgrims. They strained their eager eyes in 
vain, trying to catch sight of a ship saihng to their relief. 
Oh, Weston, Weston, was there no pulse of sympathy beat- 
ing in thy bosom, or was thy heart altogether a heart of 
stone ! How vain their " hope of supply." 



Ill 

Help came to them from an unexpected source. An utter 
stranger, one " Captain So and So," the captain of a vessel 

which was one of a fishing fleet trying the 
Help ob- waters off at the eastward of them, sent them 
tained warm Christian salutations and a wholesome 

warning against possible assaults by a savage 
foe. Edward Winslow took boat and went back with the 
messenger who brought the kindly note, and laid the distress 
of the colony before this " gentill-man " and his associates, 
and made an appeal for provisions. " By which means he 
got some good quantity and returned in safety." But this 
" good quantity " was after all only a small quantity in 
comparison with their needs. " Yet by God's blessing it 
upheld them till harvest. It arose but to a quarter of a 
pound of bread a day to each person ; and the governor 
caused it to be daily given them, otherwise, had it been 
in their own custody, they would have eaten it up and then 
starved. But thus, with what else they could get, they made 
pretty shift till corn was ripe." Another sharp corner was 
turned. Another milestone was reached on the wearisome 
journey to assured success. 

But there were other sharp comers to be turned, and 
other wearisome stretches of road to be travelled, before 

these sorely-smitten but resolute colonists could 
Corn crop dismiss anxious forecastings from their minds, 
light They had reached the com harvest of the 

second year ; but the yield was so slight, and 
some of the more reckless of their number — mainly the new- 
comers most likely — had stealthily invaded the fields and 
made such free use of the unripe ears, that what was gath- 



THE PILGRIMS 247 

ered gave but small promise of security against pinching 
hunger in the days near at hand. " Now the welcome time 
of harvest approached, in which all had their hungry bellies 
filled. But it arose but to a little in comparison of a full 
year's supply." Gaunt famine still stalked ahead of them 
and darkened the way. It looked as if the sad experiences 
of the past winter were to be repeated in the coming winter 
— only with less and less of strength and fortitude to en- 
dure them. 

" Behold now another providence of God : a ship comes 
into the harbor, one Captain Jones being the chief therein." 

This ship had beads and knives to sell. Extor- 
TJnexpected tionate prices were charged for the articles, and 
help again only the lowest prices were offered for beaver ; 

but the straitened colonists were glad to make 
the exchange on almost any terms. The beads and knives 
they could readily dispose of to the Indians for com. They 
bought the trinkets and immediately sold them for the food 
they so much required; although on their importunity 
they felt constrained to share this bit of good fortune with 
Weston's people at Weymouth. In this way they added to 
their small store enough to carry them over into the next 
year. Nevertheless the struggle was a sharp one, and their 
scant supply had to be eked out by every economy possible. 

IV 

After the first winter, when their sufferings were not so 
much from want of food as from sickness, although they 

were in great need of proper food, until they 
The trying ^ere securely established and had bread enough 
period q^j^^ Iq spare, the period between seed-sowing 

and ingathering seems to have been the most 
trying one for the Pilgrims. Supplies were exhausted, and 
the earth had not yet yielded her increase for the suste- 
nance of man. Game was obtainable at certain times in the 
year, and wild berries ; but the tribes of the waters and the 
mollusks of the shores were the chief resources open to them 
in the early summer months. They had but poor equipment 
for successful catches, but against starvation fishing was 



248 THE PILGRIMS 

the ready alternative to which they turned. It was fishing, 
with a hand given also to clam-digging and hunting, to 
which they had recourse in the present extremity. 

Only Bradford, however, can tell the impressive story 
in suitable fashion. " They having but one boat left and 
she not over well fitted, they were divided into several com- 
panies, six or seven to a gang or company ; and so went 
out with a net they had bought, to take bass and such hke 
fish, by course, every company knowing their turn. No 
sooner was the boat discharged of what she brought, but 
the next company took her and went out with her. Neither 
did they return till they had caught something, though it 
were five or six days before, for they knew there was nothing 
at home, and to go home empty would be a great discour- 
agement to the rest. Yea, they strove who should do best. 
If she stayed long or got little, then all went to seeking 
shell-fish, which at low water they digged out of the sands. 
And this was their living in the summer time, till God sent 
them better, and in winter they were helped with ground 
nuts and fowl. Also in the summer they got now and then 
a deer ; for one or two of the fittest were appointed to range 
the woods for that end, and what was got that way was 
divided amongst them." Those were hard times. Well 
might people who were suffering this measure of depriva- 
tion and hardship be comforted by such fit words as these : 
" Let it not be grievous unto you that you have been in- 
struments to break the ice for others to come after with less 
difficulty, the honor shall be yours to the world's end." 



The embarrassments were increased by the coming to 
Plymouth from time to time of persons who were in want of 
everything, but had nothing. They brought 
Embarrass- mouths to be fed, but no food. They added to 
ing acces- |-}jg volume of hunger, but they made no contri- 
sions butions to the supplies. 

Recall how it was with the thirty-five who were landed 
from the Fortune. On another occasion, when " in a man- 



THE PILGRIMS 249 

ner their provisions were wholly spent," seven men from one 
of Weston's fishing craft, " wanting victuals " were thrown 
on the hospitality of the colonists, and they " gave them as 
good as any of their own." On still another occasion, 
though warned to the contrary by Cushman, who at length 
had come to understand the utter rottenness of the man's 
character, after Weston had openly broken with the colony, 
and they all knew how untrustworthy and contemptible 
he was, they took in " about sixty lusty men " whom he 
had asked them to receive, and gave them " friendly enter- 
tainment." For " the most part of the summer " they 
housed them, and with the best means and tenderest care the 
place afforded ministered to their " many sick." When 
those of this Weston company who were able went away to 
lay the foundation of their settlement, they left their sick 
at Plymouth till houses were ready for them. But the 
sturdy and self-respecting Pilgrims refused to accept any 
food from them, " though they were in great want." Nor 
would they take " anything else in recompense for any cour- 
tesy done them." They " saw they were an unruly com- 
pany," and the less they had to do with them the better. 
These obscure and feeble planters were after all a canny 
folk, and they had lots of long-distance wisdom. 

But shrewd as they were, they were always kind. They 
were kind even to Weston long after his dishonest and 
scheming nature had been revealed to them. He himself 
came to them in great distress, and they helped him. They 
took him into their bosom and warmed him. In return 
he gave them a viper's sting. " Let favor be showed to the 
wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness : in the land of 
uprightness, will he deal wrongfully." 



VI 

The return of the third spring found the colony prepared 
to operate on a new system. Hitherto the organization of 
their industry had been on a communistic basis. It was 
each for all and all for each by constraint. The plan was 
tried in some measure by the early disciples. It was tried 



250 THE PILGRIMS 

very thoroughly by the Pilgrims. If there were ever sets 
of men and women in the world who might have been ex- 
pected to work the scheme successfully, it was 
Abandon- these — these early disciples and these later 
ing plant- disciples who had in them so much of the spirit 
mg m (jf the Master, and whose sense of brotherhood 

common ^g^g gQ vital and controlling, and whose motives 

for coming out ahead were so imperative. But 
even under these conditions the policy failed. It failed 
because it could not help failing. It failed because it cuts 
across the grain of human nature and is at war with human 
instincts. 

" So, ... on the approach of seeding-time, . . . they 
began to think how they might raise as much corn as they 
could, and obtain a better crop than they had done before." 
" After much debate," it was decided that, wliile " in all 
other things " they were " to go on in the general way as 
before," the growing of com was to be turned over to in- 
dividuals. With this end in view parcels of land were as- 
signed to each family, according to the number of each; 
and all were allowed and encouraged to plant and raise 
what they could. The new plan succeeded. It appealed to 
self-respect. It stirred ambition and provoked industry. 
It allayed discontent and made it an object to do the best 
one might. It stimulated a healthy rivalry in toil. The 
more prudent and thrifty could not help feeling a fresh 
satisfaction and pride in their work. It supphed an ade- 
quate motive to the strong to put forth their strength and 
show what they could do. " Much more com was planted 
than otherwise would have been. . . . The women now went 
willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them 
to set corn." 

But though a larger acreage than ever before had been 
devoted to the cultivation of com, and the chances were 
apparently good for an abundant harvest, the 
Supplies crop was not yet matured. Through the latter 
very low weeks of spring and the long summer the 
pressure of extreme want was upon them ; and 
their living was literally just from hand to mouth. " By 
that their corn was planted, all their victuals were spent, 



THE PILGRIMS 251 

and they were only to rest on God's providence ; at night 
not many times knowing where to have a bit of anything 
the next day." When the Anne and the Little James, about 
midway between sowdng and reaping, brought an addition 
of sixty to Plymouth, " the best dish " which the colonists 
could set before them "was a lobster, or a piece of fish, with- 
out bread or anything else but a cup of fair spring water." 
It is small surprise that these newcomers, " when they 
saw the low and poor condition " of the colonists, " were 
much daunted and dismayed ;" and " wished," some of them, 
that they were back " in England again," while " others 
fell aweeping, fancying their own misery," in the misery 
they saw before them. One cannot help feeling the per- 
tinency and the pathos of the comparison Governor Brad- 
ford instituted between the condition of his own people at 
this time and that of the Chosen People at one of those times 
when famine was upon them. He recalled the distress which 
Jacob experienced, and the directions the old patriarch 
gave his sons to go and buy food that they might live and 
not die. But he also recalled the fact that they had " great 
herds, and store of cattle of sundry kinds, which, beside 
flesh, must needs produce other food, as milk, butter, and 
cheese ; and yet it was counted a sore affliction." Whereas 
his own people " not only wanted the staff of bread, but all 
these things, and had no Egypt to go to." Think what it 
must have meant through all those years to have been with- 
out a drop of milk — save, perhaps, a little goat's milk — 
or an ounce of fresh butter ! 

vn 

This fair promise of abundant harvest in the autumn 
came near being sharply broken. The famine which pinched 
was accompanied by a drought which consumed. 
An alarm- Beginning near the end of May there was a 
ing period of six weeks or more in which there was 

drought no rain. The heavens over them were brass and 

the earth was dissolving into choking dust. 
Morning by morning the sun rose only to beat down on them 
with fierce heat ; and evening by evening the sun set with no 



252 THE PILGRIMS 

sign of an approaching cloud in the sky. Bradford says 
that " some of the dryer ground was parched hke withered 
hay." It was inevitable that the com should feel the effects 
of the scorcliing rays and this lack of moisture. Winslow 
adds : " Both blade and stock " of their com were " hang- 
ing the head and changing the color in such manner " that 
the poor Pilgrims judged them to be " utterly dead." Their 
" beans also rose not up, according to their wonted manner ; 
but stood at stay — many being parched away, as though 
they had been parched before the fire." It looked as If their 
new plan, and " their great pains and industry," and the 
" hopes " which they cherished of " a large crop," were all 
to come to naught. The author last quoted felt con- 
strained to confess that " the most courageous were now 
discouraged." 

In their dire extremity these good men fell on their knees. 
The authorities " set apart a solemn day of humiliation " 
on which the people were " to seek the Lord by 
A day of humble and fervent prayer." For eight or 
prayer nine hours they were together in their accus- 

tomed place of worship. What confessions of 
unworthlness, what pleadings of the promises, what agoniz- 
ing cries for help, during these hours must have ascended to 
the ear of the Almighty from these earnest souls ! The 
answers were " gracious and speedy." " All the morning, 
and greatest part of the day, it was clear weather and very 
hot, and not a cloud or any sign of rain to be seen, yet to- 
ward evening it began to overcast, and shortly after to rain, 
with such sweet and gentle showers, as gave them cause of 
rejoicing and blessing God." The result of this in reviving 
" the decayed com and other fruits — was wonderful to 
see." The early hopes of a large crop were realized. 



VIII 

Besides, the wisdom of their new scheme was abundantly 
justified. In this connection Bradford has a passage of 
special significance ; for it not only states for us the out- 
come of this experiment, but it also marks a turning point 



THE PILGRIMS 253 

in the struggles of the Pilgrims. They were never again 
to be in sore straits for something to eat. " By tliis time 

harvest was come, and instead of famine, now 
New in- Qq^j gave them plenty, and the face of things 

dustrial y^^^ changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of 

scheme many, for which they blessed God. And the 

justified effect of their particular " — individual, and 

not all in common — " planting was well seen ; 
for all had, one way and another, pretty well to bring the 
year about ; and some of the abler sort and more industrious 
had to spare, and sell to others, so as any general want or 
famine hath not been amongst them since to this day." 
Well might these devout and grateful colonists, so signally 
relieved and helped, recognize the new turn their affairs had 
taken by following up the day of fasting and humiliation, 
in which they had uttered their confessions and made known 
their wants to the heavenly Father, with a day of thanks- 
giving in which to express their acknowledgments of the 
divine goodness, their confidence in the infinite mercy that 
overruled their hves, and the quiet but boundless joy they 
felt in the deliverance which had come to them from God. 
The stage of luxury had not been reached ; nor had they yet 
an adequate supply of what would be deemed the simple 
requirements of a comfortable life; but these godly men 
and women were no longer to do their work on empty 
stomachs. 

IX 

After this, from time to time, resources for better living 
began to increase. But while the Pilgrims from this date 

on had enough to satisfy hunger and keep their 
Lived bodies in good physical condition, their living 

simply ^as very simple. This of necessity. Tea and 

coffee had not come into use in those early days 
of the Pilgrims. It was not until 1652 that the first coffee- 
house was opened in London. It was a full half century 
later than this when the first coffee plant was carried to the 
West Indies. About the same time that coffee was intro- 
duced tea began to make its appearance in the circles of rich 



254 THE PILGRIMS 

and fashionable people; but the price of it in those early 
days of Charles II — sixty shillings a pound — put it 
out of the reach of all except the opulent few. Potatoes 
were not utilized for the table until more than a hundred 
and fifty years after the landing of the Pilgrims. Clear 
sparkling water, and beer when obtainable, were the table 
beverages. Cider and wine came later. Beef, veal, and mut- 
ton were for a long while strangers to the frugal boards of 
the colonists. Swine have incidental mention in the records 
at an early date ; for they were disturbers of the peace 
between neighbors as well as contributors to lean larders. 
Cattle were a later importation. 



In 1624, the Charity brought over the returning Wins- 
low, and " a bull and three heifers " which he had purchased 

for the colony. " Two were black, and the 
Cattle third was white-backed." That small herd of 

brought four was " the first beginning of any cattle in 

to the lY^Q land," and it became the cattle on a thou- 

oolony sand hills. To the poor wives and mothers 

whose resources for appetizing meals had been 
so slender the sight of these docile and useful creatures must 
have brought forth cheer and a new courage. These are 
the " some cattle " which Captain John Smith referred to in 
a letter written in England later in the same year of 1624, 
in which he said that Plymouth contained " about a hundred 
and eighty people, who had thirty-two dwelling houses, 
some cattle and goats, with much swine and poultry." 
Early in the following year, 1625, the Jacob brought over 
five young cattle — four of them on consignment to Wins- 
low and Allerton, and one a gift from Shirley to the poor. 
In the division of the cattle, to which reference is to be 
made in the next paragraph, the Anne is credited with 
having brought over some of the stock which the colony 
then owned. Among these animals were " the great black 
cow, . . . the great white-back cow," and " the lesser of 
the black cows." 



THE PILGRIMS 255 

The claim is made by Dr. Ames that the cattle referred to 
as having been brought by the Anne must have been brought 
over in 1623. In that case those brought in the Charity 
could not have been the first to be received by the colony. 
It is very certain that there were neither kine, horses, nor \ 
sheep in the Mayflower. So all the cattle the colony owned 
came later. Now the Anne could not have brought 
cattle on the trip in 1623 ; for Bradford says explicitly 
that those brought in the Charity a year afterwards were 
" the first beginning of any cattle of that kind in the land." 
Besides, had the Anne had cattle on board when she reached 
Plymouth, and found the colony in almost a starving con- 
dition, it would have filled all their hearts with inexpressible 
joy. Instead, there was dismay because no help in the way 
of food had been brought to them, and the demands upon 
them had been greatly increased. In making the entries 
relating to the division of cattle in 1627, a mistake had 
been made, and the cattle had been attributed to the wrong 
ship. That explains it ; for in a matter of this importance 
Bradford could not have b.een misinformed. 

On January 1, 1627, the number of cattle had risen to 
fifteen. Twelve of these were cows. At that time there 
were one hundred and fifty-six persons in the 
Division o-f settlement, who, because they were ** pur- 
cattle chasers," a body to be explained later, or in 
virtue of their relations to the " purchasers," 
were entitled to share in the common property of the 
colony. These were arranged in groups, according to 
their individual preferences, of thirteen each. To each of 
these twelve groups of thirteen one cow was assigned by 
lot. But this arrangement was to hold good for only ten 
years. The cattle still belonged to the colony as a whole. 
At the end of ten years each cow, if hving, with one-half 
of the increase, if any, was to be given back to the Com- 
pany. The bulls were evidently turned over to the groups 
best able to take care of them. To all except — for some 
reason not stated — the group of which John Howland 
was the head, a pair of she-goats was added to the cow. 
The swine were distributed in the same systematic way. As 
to the cows a dozen of them distributed among a hundred 



256 THE PILGRIMS 

and seventy-five or eighty people — for there were thirty 
or forty then In the colony who had no right to participate 
in the allotment of the common possessions, but who had 
mouths to be fed, would not seem to promise an oversupply 
of dairy products. 

But even one was better than nothing, for good milkers 
were an expensive luxury. At about the time this division 

was made It Is estimated that a good cow was 
Price of worth the equivalent of two hundred dollars of 

cows Q^j. money. Calves would be carefully raised, 

and cows would not be fattened for slaughter 
so long as they gave reasonable promise of yielding a good 
quantity of milk. Among the assets of Standlsh when he 
died were two pairs of oxen and ten cows and calves. He 
knew not only how to intimidate Indians, but how to make 
farming profitable. For the thrifty captain, Inside of a 
year after the " red cow " had been assigned to him and his 
group, bought out the shares of his associates In the ten- 
year ownership and had her all to himself. It is through 
this transaction that we get our information concerning 
the value of a cow at that time and place. 

Cows, if not thought to be " sacred," were considered 
fit objects to devote to sacred uses. In 1633, Dr. Fuller 
declared In his will : " I give to the Church of God at 
Plymouth the first cow-calf that my brown cow shall have." 
Shces of ripe roast beef, now such a necessity to every 
robust Englishman, and kidney-cuts of veal were not for 
these struggling colonists. Day, the Harvard printer, 
to whom the world Is indebted for the " Bay Psalm-book," 
thought it a high commendation of the young man who was 
to marry his daughter that he had " cattle all ready " for 
his use. 

Horses were owned in Salem as early as 1629. In 1635 
the James brought a consignment of horses to Boston. In 

the same year Dutch ships brought horses from 
Horses Holland to the Boston market. As to the time 

when horses were introduced into Plymouth 
there is uncertainty. Thatcher says that " the first 
notice of horses on record Is 1644, when a mare, belonging 
to the estate of Stephen Hopkins, was appraised at six 



THE PILGRIMS 257 

pounds sterling." This implies, of course, that horses 
were there before that date. In speaking of the brisk trade 
which sprang up between the Bay and Plymouth after the 
great sickness in Boston in 1631, Goodwin says: " Every- 
thing that Plymouth had to sell was readily taken, espe- 
cially in exchange for horses and neat cattle." This writer 
doubtless had good authority for what his statement sug- 
gests. Governor Bradford is said to have owned a " mare," 
which was used by the escort who attended Governor 
Winthrop and his party for some distance as they returned 
from their visit to Plymouth in 1632. Howland had a 
horse in 1656. This same year, when he died, Standish 
owned five " horses and colts." One catches these glimpses 
of horses, as well as oxen, in the colony with special satis- 
faction; for it means the lightening of so many burdens 
which must have been heavy in the earlier years, and a 
marked increase in the facihties for making a hving. 

The first hint of sheep in the colony is that given in the 
transaction in which Standish acquired full possession of 
the use of the cow assigned to him and his 
Sheep group. " Two ewe lambs " were given by 

Standish in exchange for one share he bought. 
Lambs like calves were considered appropriate gifts to 
the churches. This was Wilham Wright's token of regard 
for the httle body of disciples in the wilderness — "a ewe 
lamb." For some reason the flocks did not multiply so 
fast as the herds. As late as 1633 the colony found it 
necessary to forbid the exportation of sheep. Wolves were 
plenty and troublesome, and it may have been difficult to 
protect the sheep against their ravages. 

Goats were more hardy and an earlier importation than 
sheep. It was easy, too, to increase the stock of goats. 
Recall John Smith's statement, " some cattle 
^°^*s and goats." On the breaking up, in 1626, of 

" a plantation which was at Monhegan " — off 
the coast of Maine — " and belonged to some merchants at 
Plymouth," in England, a flock of goats was secured for the 
colony. 

Wliile there was this shortage, however, in beef and 
mutton and dairy products, the Pilgrims, after the first 

17 



258 THE PILGRIMS 

sharp pinch was over, had fish in plenty, and lobsters and 
clams, and wild game, deer and turkeys. They also had 

field strawberries in abundance, and plums and 
Sea-food, huckleberries in their season. Orchards were 
game, fowl, planted early. Inside of twenty years Dux- 
and fruits bury had a large number of thrifty apple-trees. 

Wheat yielded a good crop for more than forty 
years after the landing on Plymouth Rock; but at length 
a blight fell upon it, and the use of this important cereal 
had to be abandoned for a while. 

Indian com, rye, and beans became the staples of living. 
Baked beans were domesticated at Plymouth before they 

were in Boston. Pork was in common use. 
Staples of With fish, fresh and salted and smoked, with 
living venison and fowl, with beans, green and dried, 

with clams from the sanls, with vegetables like 
squash and turnip and onion from field and garden, with 
milk and butter and cheese from their own increasing herds, 
and with fruits in considerable variety in their season, and 
with everything in the way of supplies on the up-grade, 
the Pilgrims were in no danger of starving. They did not 
starve. 



XI 

On the contrary, it is remarkable how healthy they were, 
and to what a good old age those who survived the severe 
ordeal of the first years actually lived. Brad- 
Health and ford was sixty-seven when he went hence, 
long life Standish was seventy-two. Brewster was sev- 
enty-eight. Alice Southworth Bradford was 
nearly eighty. Francis Cook was rising eighty. After 
sixty years of the kind of life they had to live in the colony, 
John Alden, Priscilla Mullins Alden, Mrs. Susana White 
Winslow, Mrs. Elizabeth Tilley Rowland, George Soule, 
Giles Hopkins, John Cook, Resolved White, Henry Samp- 
son, Samuel Fuller, Samuel Eaton, and Mrs. Mary AUerton 
Cushman, were still living. Cook and White lingered for 
another decade and more. Mary Allerton Cushman, the 



THE PILGRIMS 259 

last of the sacred fellowship to go, did not pass to her 
reward until 1699. 

The burial of this mother in Israel must" have been a 
solemn and memorable occasion. When her venerable hus- 
band, Thomas Cushman, the successor of Brewster in the 
eldership, in 1691 went hence to the Great Beyond, a fast 
day was observed by the Plymouth church. The widow 
was held in tender regard and remembered in her needs. 
When her time came to join her husband in the unseen 
world, it is easy to imagine the moisture in the eyes and the 
quiver on the lips of the company who gathered about her 
open grave. It is fit that a granite obelisk has been erected 
on Burial Hill to mark the spot where all that is mortal of 
this immortal pair now rests. 



XIII 
PAYING THEIR DEBTS 



The Company sold to the Colony all their shares, stocks, merchandise, 
lands and chattels, in consideration of Eighteen Hundred Pounds, to be paid 
at the Royal Exchange in London, every Michaelmas, in nine annual and 
equal payments, the first of which was to be made in 1628. The agreement 
was approved. The settlers were distrustful of their ability to provide for 
the annual payments, and their own wants. Yet despair formed no part of 
their character, they always lived in hope and trusted to God. 

Francis Baylieb. 

Finally, in March, 1646, when it had stood over a quarter of a Century, 
the Pilgrim Republic for the first time enjoyed the luxury of owing no man 
anything. Its debts had been inflated, its funds embezzled, its trade de- 
frauded, and its confidence betrayed : but it had borne every burden without 
shrinking, and had preferred to endure fraud and robbery rather than risk 
any sacrifice of honor. Its leaders took care that every chance of wrong 
should fall on themselves rather than on the public creditors who had treated 
them unjustly. Repudiation is not a plant of Old Colony growth. 

John A. Goodwin. 



XIII 
PAYING THEIR DEBTS 

IN addition to winning a living from soil and sea, and 
from the timber and game of the forests, the Pilgrims 
were to pay their debts, and at the earliest practicable 
moment work free from the perplexing entanglements and 
heavy burdens in which they were involved by the unequal 
agreement with the Merchant Adventurers. 

Debt is a serious handicap to anybody. Especially is 
this so when one has nothing. in the way of assets to meet 
his indebtedness. The merchant who borrows money to 
buy goods has on his shelves the equivalent of what he 
owes ; but the man who owes and has nothing with which 
to pay, even under the most propitious circumstances, has 
a heavy and discouraging load to carry. These colonists 
had faith and pluck, willing hands and resolute purpose, 
and the habits of industry, economy, and self-denial, but 
they could hardly have been in a less favorable condition 
for making money than they were during the first years 
of their settlement at Plymouth. Straitened in all sorts 
of material resources, without experience of the country 
and the ways of getting on in it, sick, hungry, perplexed, 
and with not a few of their wise and strong ones gone 
hence, one cannot help feeling that they did well to keep 
the breath of life in their bodies and their organization 
intact. It was inevitable that paying debts would prove 
to be a long and tedious task. 



Technically, at the outset, these obligations of the 
colonists to the Adventurers were not debts ; but in morals 



264 THE PILGRIMS 

they were ; and before the business was definitely concluded 
they became so by mutual agreement in form. The Pil- 
grims might well have put their own losses and 
Why the sufferings over against the unprofitable out- 
Pilgrims layg niade by the Adventurers ; but, as we 
were in shall see, they refused to do this, and volun- 

^^^^ tarily bound themselves to pay over a stipu- 

lated and, to them, large sum to satisfy the 
claims of those who had invested their money in the 
enterprise. 

Recall the fact that the colonists and the Merchant 
Adventurers constituted a joint-stock company. Every 
planter of sixteen years of age and upwards was rated at 
one share. A planter putting in ten pounds of money or 
provisions was entitled to an additional share. A planter 
carrying wife and children, or servants, received a single 
share for each person of sixteen or upwards ; or for chil- 
dren or servants between the ages of ten and sixteen a 
share for two. The Adventurers, of course, obtained shares 
only by investing their money in the enterprise. It was 
this money put in by the Adventurers, and which it was 
expected would yield gratifying returns at the end of seven 
years when the joint property was to be divided and the 
profits distributed, that created the financial obligations in 
which the colonists were involved. 

n 

In no one of the authorities consulted are we told just 
how many shares of the stock the Adventurers took. Nor 

is it clear how much the returns actually made 
Exact during the period in which the original con- 

amoiint of tract was in operation netted them. While 
indebted- some of the consignments were intercepted, and 
ness diffi- (jjj ^^^ }^e]p ^he Adventurers at all, though 
cult to they told against the resources of the planters 

ascertain just the same, there were other remittances 

made which did reach them ; but how much 
these successful remittances summed up is not in evidence in 
any of the accessible records. We know, however, that the 



THE PILGRIMS 265 

amount which Allerton agreed to pay the Adventurers for 
their entire interest in the colony, when as agent of the 
planters in 1627 he bought them out, was eighteen hundred 
pounds. This was nearly at the end of the seven years for 
which the partnership was to run, and was in addition to 
all that had been advanced before. 

Still the eighteen hundred pounds was not the full meas- 
ure of the burden which the planters had to assume. Dur- 
ing those years of struggle they had been obliged from time 
to time to borrow quite large sums at extortionate rates. 
Standish, for instance, a year or so before this final agree- 
ment with the Adventurers, made a loan of a hundred and 
fifty pounds at fifty per cent interest. At a later date, 
Allerton secured two hundred pounds at thirty per cent. 
The notes of the Pilgrims were out for other sums. Money 
was necessary, even though it had to be obtained on these 
appaUingly high terms, to meet expenses and carry on 
trade. It is impossible to say just what was the total 
indebtedness of the colonists at the end of their seven years 
of toil and hardship ; but it was at least six hundred 
pounds in addition to the eighteen hundred pounds which 
were to be paid the Merchant Adventurers. This was 
certainly a formidable challenge to courage as well as to 
industry and financial skill. 

But let us go back and look at this matter of debt- 
paying somewhat more in detail. 



in 

The first note of irritation over delay in making returns 
came, as might have been anticipated, from Weston and 

those of his ilk among the Adventurers. The 
First com- complaint, voiced in letters, was that the May- 
plaints at -flower, when she made her home voyage after 
delay in re- ^jjg winter at Plymouth, bore no products for 
mittancea \\y^ market. The letters were intrusted to 

Cushman, who had come over on the Fortune 
to secure the signatures of the colonists to the altered arti- 
cles of agreement which they had stoutly refused to sign 



266 THE PILGRIMS 

at Southampton. This vessel, it will be remembered, 
arrived at Plymouth in the late autunm after the first sum- 
mer. But those in possession of the facts of the story, as 
these facts have now been given, and who also know how 
negligent and niggardly these London correspondents 
were in meeting their share of the common obligations, and 
sending over suitable goods with which to do business, will 
readily understand how unreasonable it was to expect these 
crippled and struggling pioneers to do more than they did. 
It was not alone unreasonable; it was heartless. When 
these letters were written, the Adventurers, one and all of 
them, knew what an awful affliction had fallen upon the 
colonists, and through what sorest straits they had been 
called to pass. It would be unfair to say that Shylock, 
insisting on his pound of flesh, was more humane than they ; 
but it is not unfair to say that the demands of some of 
these men suggest Shylock. The colonists were weak and 
smitten. They had neither time nor strength nor capital 
to make gains. What they were entitled to was not 
blame, harsh and cruel, but tenderest sympathy and en- 
couragement. They should have been promptly and gener- 
ously helped. 

However, before the close of their first twelvemonth in 
the new country, the Pilgrims managed to get together 

merchandise for the home market to the value 
The first ^f something hke five hundred pounds. This 
remittance consisted of " good clapboard," or staves for 
and what making beer barrels and kegs, " and two 
came of it hogsheads of beaver and otter skins." A 

hogshead held a little less than two hundred 
beaver skins. An average skin weighed about a pound and 
a half. Each pound of beaver was worth a pound sterling 
in the market. How many of the pelts in these two hogs- 
heads were beaver we are not informed ; but, as just stated, 
the value of the whole cargo was near to five hundred 
pounds. In the circumstances this was extraordinary. 
These people were not prepared for trade with the Indians ; 



THE PILGRIMS 267 

but with the few trifling articles which they had brought 
with them, they were enabled to purchase this amount of 
goods to be sent back. The Fortune, on her return voyage, 
took these conmiodities aboard; and it looked as if a fair 
start had been made towards satisfying the expectations 
of the London partners and helping the colonists to a bet- 
ter business standing in England. Alas for all con- 
cerned ! These bright hopes were destined to a bitter dash- 
ing. In those days ships on the high seas were subject to 
other perils than storms and rocks and shoals. The strong 
preyed upon the weak; and almost anything was made a 
pretext for justifying rapacity and greed. When but a 
short distance out from the EngHsh harbor, the Fortune 
was captured by a French war-ship and her cargo was con- 
fiscated by the French authorities. Thus ended the first 
attempt to ease financial burdens and hush unreasonable 
complaints. 



In the autumn of 1623, the Anne, which brought an 
increase to the colony of about sixty persons, besides thirty 

or forty others who had come on their own 
A second individual account, seems to have taken back 
remittance g^ consignment of the usual " clapboard," and 

Kkewise " all the beaver and other furs they 
had : " but there is only incidental mention made of the 
value of this cargo ; nor are we told of the uses to which 
the money obtained from it was put. Most Hkely it did not 
do much more than meet expenses, or possibly aid in wip- 
ing out some side indebtedness. 



VI 

It was some time before the colonists were in condition 
to make further returns of value. But in 1625 a large 
ship, with a cargo of considerable worth, left Plymouth 
for London, Through fear of French privateers, for there 
:was then " a bruit of war *' between France and England, 



268 THE PILGRIMS 

her captain took her into an English port; and through 
the delay thus occasioned the chance to sell to advantage 

what she had brought over was lost. Along 
Other futile ^ith this larger vessel, and in her tow in fact, 
attempts ^}jg Little James — a boat which seems to 
to make have been attended with ill luck from the 
returns first — set sail with a freight of fish and fur. 

She was taken by the Turks, In this way an- 
other sturdy effort to better the financial situation came 
to naught. 

vn 

The simple fact is it was a struggle for existence. At 
the end of six or seven years no real headway had been 
made in increasing the commercial value of the 
A new property held by the colonists and Merchant 

financial Adventurers in common, or in furnishing sat- 
basis isfactory returns to the London stockholders 

necessary fQj. their investment in the undertaking. It 
became more and more evident that for the 
good of all who were interested or in any way involved in 
the movement, the affairs of the Company must be put on 
another basis. 

Winslow returned to England on the Anne. He did not 
go for the specific purpose of reorganizing the Company, 
but " to inform of all things, and procure such 
Winslow's things as were thought needful for their pres- 
visit to gnt condition." In their repeated conferences 

England many things passed, no doubt, between Wins- 
low, who was a natural-bom diplomatist, and 
the Merchants, fitted to pave the way for a readjustment 
when the right time should come. That this subject was 
in the minds of the Adventurers, and was freely and even 
bitterly discussed at times, is evident from letters sent over 
to the colonists at this particular period. Still the main 
object of Winslow's visit was to give information, hush 
discontent and faction if possible, impart courage and 
secure supplies. We know how well he succeeded in the lat- 
ter of these aims. 



THE PILGRIMS 269 

Two years subsequent to the date of Winslow's visit to 
England, Standish was sent over with instructions to mend 

matters, if he could, by some sort of recon- 
Standish struction of the articles of agreement. He was 
goes over ^q plead with the Company for easier terms in 

the sale of goods to them, and for goods more 
suitable to the kind of trade they had to carry on with the 
Indians. Beyond this he was to plead with the Council for 
New England for " favor and help." He was to secure 
their aid in bringing such of the Adventurers as had for- 
saken and deserted them back to a saner mind, and not to 
hold the colonists to the terms of the agreement while they 
themselves disregarded them. In other words, he was to 
urge " that they might either stand to their former cove- 
nants, or else come to some fair end by division or com- 
position." Owing to the political confusion which marked 
that great revolutionary hour, and the panic and devas- 
tation caused by the plague then prevailing, and the seri- 
ous financial losses which many of the friends of the colony 
had suffered, he could do little more than borrow, as we 
have seen, a small sum of money at an exorbitant rate of 
interest. But he had set the idea of reorganization to fer- 
menting in the minds of the parties concerned. In doing 
this he " prepared a good way for the composition that was 
afterwards made." It is evident that the brave captain 
was something more than a mere fighter. 

The next year Allerton was commissioned by the col- 
onists to cross the ocean and follow up the promising 

initiative made by Standish in readjusting 
Allerton |-}^g articles of agreement under which they and 
sent to tj^g Adventurers were conducting their affairs, 

push jjjg directions were " to make a composition 

negotia- with the Adventurers upon as good terms as he 
tions could." Nothing, however, was to be settled 

finally until the whole matter had been referred 
to the people at Plymouth. They had been caught once, so 
they were prompt to remember, by an unwarranted assump- 
tion of authority on the part of an agent, and once was 
enough. Having wintered in England, " at the usual sea- 
son of the coming of ships Mr. Allerton returned." He 



270 THE PILGRIMS 

was fortunate, as has been noted, in being able to borrow 
money at a less rate of interest than some of the previous 
agents of the colony had been able to do, and he brought 
with him " some useful goods." 

But his more important achievement was in the line of 
reorganization. " By the help of sundry of their faithful 
friends," and " with much ado and no small trouble, he had 
made a composition with the Adventurers." A copy of 
this agreement, " drawn by the best counsel of the law 
they could get, to make it firm," he had brought with him. 
Forty-two of the Adventurers affixed their names to this 
document in their own behalf, and Allerton subscribed for 
the colonists. If the Plymouth people assented to the 
terms thus mutually agreed upon and stated in the paper, 
the bargain was to become binding, and the whole enter- 
prise was to stand on another and more helpful basis. 



vin 

The sum and substance of the agreement was that the 
merchants were to abandon all claims and relinquish all 

right and title to the property of the colony 
The new qj^ {\^q payment to them by the colonists of 
agreement eighteen hundred pounds. The payments 

were to be made in annual instalments, on a 
stipulated day, of two hundred pounds. Bradford shall 
tell the rest of the story : " This agreement was very well 
liked of, and approved by all the plantation, and consented 
unto ; though they knew not well how to raise the payment, 
and discharge their other engagements, and supply the 
yearly wants of the plantation, seeing they were forced for 
their necessities to take up money or goods at so high 
interest. Yet they undertook it, and seven or eight of the 
chief of the place became jointly bound for the payment of 
this eighteen hundred pounds in behalf of the rest, at the 
several days. In which they ran a great adventure, as 
their present state stood, having many other heavy burdens 
already upon them, and all things in an uncertain con- 
dition among them. So the next return it was absolutely 



THE PILGRIMS 271 

confirmed on both sides, and the bargain fairly engrossed 
in parchment and in many things put into better form, by 
the advice of the learnedest counsel they could get, . . . 
and was concluded under their hands and seals." 



IX 

This put a better face on affairs. It also imposed very 
formidable obhgations. In the passage just quoted Brad- 
ford speaks of " other engagements," and 
New ar- « many other heavy burdens." These " other 

rangement engagements " and " heavy burdens " were in 
inspires part debts, such as have been indicated already, 

hope which had been incurred from time to time for 

money borrowed with which to obtain supplies 
or trading goods. These sums amounted to a round six 
hundred pounds. The combined obligations bulked large, 
and surely would have staggered the colonists had they 
not been of the dauntless sort. But they bent their necks 
to the yoke, and the load moved. Seven or eight of their 
number, so Bradford tells us in the paragraph just quoted, 
became responsible for the payments stipulated in the bar- 
gain. Here are the names of the eight who became re- 
sponsible for the whole colony : Bradford, Winslow, Brew- 
ster, Allerton, Standish, Rowland, Alden, Prence. It was 
a meritorious service which they rendered. For an act 
involving so much pubHc spirit and such downright cour- 
age as was exhibited by them in assuming responsibility 
for the payment of so large a sum, in so short a time, 
with such slender resources, the men who bore these names 
deserve in every account of the transaction the honor of 
special mention. 

It will be noticed that all but one of those named fall 
into the hst of those " which came first over in the May- 
flower.^' They were of the original Pilgrim Company. 
Thomas Prence came in the Fortune, but he had the quali- 
ties which speedily advanced him to the rank of the leaders. 
In the hst, however, which Prince gives and which counts 
up, not seven or eight, but nine, the names of Fuller and 



272 THE PILGRIMS 

Jenny are substituted for Prence. Jenny came over in the 
Anne or Little James, and was a " godly, though otherwise, 
a plain man ; yet singular for publickness of spirit, set- 
ting himself to seek and promote the common good of the 
plantation." But Fuller was a Mayflower man and, like 
his fellows in the ship, was pluck to the last. 

The changed relation of the colony to the 
Financial Adventurers called for a readjustment of 
and other things in the colony itself. The men who 
readjust- had become indorsers for the colony were 
ments in justly entitled to all the security which could 
the colony ^jg given them. The colony was under moral 
obligation the most binding to put itself in the 
best shape possible to furnish the security. To effect a 
satisfactory reorganization three steps were taken. 



The first was a step in the interest of consolidation and 
unity. It will be remembered that the Anne, in 1623, 

brought to Plymouth, not only an accession 
Consolida- Qf gJxty members to the colony proper, but 
tion and thirty or forty persons, who wished to live 

^"^^*y in the midst of the colony, but not to be 

identified with it further than conforming to 
the general regulations. They " did not belong to the 
general body, but came on their particular " — that is, 
on their individual and independent account — " and 
were to have lands assigned them, and be for themselves, 
yet to be subject to the general government, which caused 
some difference and disturbance amongst them." It was 
not the colonists, but the Adventurers, who had brought 
this about. Besides these, who were of them and yet 
not of them, the colonists " from the first " had " some 
untoward persons mixed amongst them," and later still 
others who had no fellowship with their spirit and pur- 
pose had been inconsiderately thrust upon them. Some of 
the worst of these were sent back ; others remained. The 
grave question was what to do with these insiders who were 
yet outsiders. At this stage of the business harmony was 



THE PILGRIMS 273 

of all consequence. So the governor and his trusted ad- 
visers, after general conference and due deliberation, wisely 
concluded to take into the colony all these outsiders who 
were either heads of families, or single young men who had 
ability and character and gave promise of being helpful 
to the struggling commonwealth. Thus at a single stroke 
unity was secured, and the prospect of the hearty co- 
working of all toward the end of freedom from debt which 
was so much a burden on every heart. 

The second step consisted in turning over to these men 
who had become personally responsible for the payment of 
the indebtedness of the colony, a monopoly of 
Monopoly the trade of the colony. In this way these 
in trade bondsmen were enabled to shape the financial 
granted poHcy of the Httle community, keep their 

hands on the sources of income, and see to it 
that the receipts were more than the expenditures. The 
common property and the trading equipment of the colony 
were committed to their direction; and they were to have 
the say in business and in the ordering of all money affairs 
so far as they concerned the common interests. All the 
traffic of the plantation, save what httle might be carried 
on in a small way between individuals, was to be in their 
hands. They were to import a certain amount of goods, 
such as shoes and stockings, and to have the exclusive 
privilege of bartering with the Indians and with the vari- 
ous settlements up and down the coast. As the indorsers 
for the colony were to monopolize trade to this extent, so 
the colonists were to buy of them at a stipulated price — 
a stipulated price both for what was sold and for what 
was taken in payment. This arrangement was to continue 
for six years, then business was to revert to the colony. 
Doubtless this seemed hard to some, but it was only by such 
drastic measures of direction and thrift and economy that 
the colony could hope to better its condition. Hence there 
was general acquiescence in the scheme. 

The third step in reorganization had to do with a fur- 
ther division and allotment of land. Each shareholder had 
already a single acre. In addition to this, twenty acres 
were allowed to each shareholder. Meadows were still held 

18 



274 THE PILGRIMS 

in common. But from this time on each man had enough 
land which he could call his own to make a snug little farm. 

A new motive force was set in operation. The 
Division stock of cattle, and of goats and swine, was 
and allot- q^Jsq divided and apportioned to famihes and 
ment of groups of famihes. This was a decided inroad 

land upon the scheme with which the colony had 

begun its career. It was also a vast advance 
in the individualizing of duties and possessions upon what 
had been done four years before, when the members of 
the colony were allowed and encouraged to plant corn on 
their own account. 

Thus at length the colonists had things in their own 
hands, and they were moving along on the right track. 
One begins to scent assured victory in the air. 

XI 

At this juncture a piece of rare good fortune fell to the 
lot of the colonists. Early in the spring of 1627, Isaac 
de Rassieres, secretary of the governing body 
Taught to Qf i}yQ Dutch settlement at Manhattan, wrote 
use warn- ^ letter to Governor Bradford in which over- 
pum for tures of friendsliip were tendered to the Pil- 
currency grim colony, and Hkewise offers to enter into 
trade with them. At that time the immigrants, 
who had come from Holland and were settled on Man- 
hattan Island and along the valleys of the Hudson and the 
Mohawk, numbered not far from three hundred. These 
people claimed the territory on which the Pilgrims had 
built their homes and started their state; nor were they 
quite wiling to give up their claim. Still, they were not 
disposed to make trouble for their fellow strugglers on the 
shores of this new wilderness-world, but rather to encour- 
age and help them. The Plymouth colonists were prompt 
to reciprocate these expressions of kindly feeling. It would 
have been sad had it been otherwise. The experiences of 
those years at Leyden — on the one side of hospitality and 
protection extended, and on the other of hospitality and 
protection received — were fitted to be a special bond of 



THE PILGRIMS 275 

union between the Dutch and the Enghsh the world over. 
The result of the correspondence was that in the autumn of 
this same year, 1627, the Dutch secretary visited Plymouth. 
From him the colonists learned the use of wampum. 

Wampum was a currency made from shells — for the 
most part the shells of the round clam. It was new at that 
time to both the Pilgrims and the natives of those parts, 
and it was a couple of years before the Indians would 
consent to have much to do with it. 

It must not be thought that these wampum beads were 
mere gewgaws, of no more value than so many pebbles 
picked up on the shore. This would not be true. They 
had no intrinsic value like gold and silver and copper and 
iron, but each bead on the string represented a certain 
amount of labor, and this labor gave it worth. The process 
of making this money is thus described by Goodwin : " The 
shell was broken into small pieces, which, clipped to a 
somewhat regular form, were then drilled, ground to a 
rounded shape and finely polished." " Some of the whites," 
so he added, " tried to produce it by improved processes ; 
but they soon found that the manufacture of such as the 
Indians would receive cost more than its current value." 
This might be true of the English at Plymouth, but ac- 
cording to Griffis, it was not true of the Dutch in their 
settlement. He says : " With their superior tools, drills, 
hammers, knives, and lathes, the men from the land of banks 
and of the diamond polishing industry were able quickly 
to get and to keep the manufacture almost entirely in their 
own hands. . . . The wampum made by the Dutch, or by 
squaws under Dutch oversight, was not only far better, 
but much more beautiful, than that from the red men's 
fingers." Three of the purple beads, which were twice the 
value of the white ones, were equivalent to a penny. The 
Pilgrims bought fifty pounds worth of these beads from 
de Rassieres. Thus were the colonists started in the use 
of a medium of exchange which in course of time, though, 
as has just been intimated, the natives with whom the 
colonists did business did not take to it at once, became 
of great advantage to them in their future trafficking. 

With their new currency, with their fresh reorganiza- 



276 THE PILGRIMS 

tion, with their definite knowledge of just what they had 
to do, and with the fund of valuable experience which they 
had accumulated in their seven years of residence in the 
wilderness, they set themselves resolutely to the task before 
them. 

XII 

Under the obhgations now assumed it became necessary 
for the Pilgrims to enlarge the scope of their business 

operations. If they were to pay out more 
Expanding money year by year they must make more 
their trade monev. 

One of the moves in this direction was the 
putting up of a trading-house at Manomet. This place is 
on a river, called then by the same name, though it is now 

known as Monumet River, twenty miles from 
A trading- Plymouth, and on the south side of Cape Cod. 
house at gy establishing a trading-post at this point 
Manomet they had access to Buzzard's Bay, and through 

this channel access to all the bays and rivers 
along the coast and along the shores of Long Island, with- 
out exposure to the dangers and delays of a trip around 
the cape. In addition to the trading-house, and as a neces- 
sary part of the outfit for doing business, they built a 
pinnace — a boat, that is, which was navigated both by 
sail and oar, and which was large enough to hold a good 
store of freight. The distance from the head of Buzzard's 
Bay to the waters of the cape is less than a half-dozen 
miles. By using small craft and following along the 
Scusset River, even this short distance could be consider- 
ably reduced. In getting goods, therefore, back and forth 
between Plymouth and Long Island Sound, what little land 
transportation was necessary became a matter of small 
account. The trading-house was protected by a palisade. 
Two men were put in charge of the property. When not 
oflF on trading expeditions, these men gave attention to 
agriculture and the care of domestic animals. The ven- 
ture proved to be a profitable one, and must have met the 
reasonable expectations of the colonists. 



THE PILGRIMS 277 

Another point at which trade was pushed with fresh 
energy and greatly enlarged, was on the Kennebec River. 

A trading-house was erected at what is now 
Trade on Augusta, the capital of Maine. A stock of 
the Ken- articles suited to Indian tastes was laid in, 
nebec a,fjj soon a profitable trade was established 

with the natives. " Coats, shirts, rugs, blan- 
kets, corn, biscuits, pease, prunes, knives, hatchets, and 
wampum " were exchanged for furs. However, it took 
two years of persuasion to induce these down-east Indians 
to adopt " wampum " as a current coin. This trade, es- 
tablished earher and carried on in a somewhat desultory 
way, had required a boat of larger size than any which 
they possessed. So, as Goodwin tells the story, the Pil- 
grims " persuaded a house-carpenter to saw a shallop in 
halves and insert some six feet of waist. Thus they had a 
decked vessel, ' convenient and whole,' which did good ser- 
vice for seven years ; and with this barque they built up 
a fine trade on the Kennebec." 

Not long after the colonists had been operating on the 
new basis, and trade on the Kennebec had assumed larger 

and more promising proportions, another piece 
The Brad- Qf j.£^j.g good fortune befell them. This was 
ford patent ^ patent, running to William Bradford, and 

through him to his heirs, associates, and as- 
signs, sent over by the Council for New England, and 
signed by the president of the council, the powerful Earl 
of Warrick. This patent for the first time defined the 
boundaries of the Plymouth Colony. But the feature of 
the instrument which gave it a special bearing on the busi- 
ness of debt-paying was the grant it contained of a well- 
defined tract on the Kennebec. 

As early as the autumn of 1625, " Mr. Winslow and some 
of the old standards " had pushed up the Kennebec River 
with a shallop load of corn, which they exchanged with 
" good success " for beaver and other furs that the Indians 
had trapped. Indeed Bradford claimed, when competitors 
in the fishing vessels and at Piscataqua were trying to 
crowd them out from participation in this profitable traffic, 
that it was his people who "had first begun and discovered" 



278 THE PILGRIMS 

this opportunity for trade, " and had brought it to so good 
effect." Allerton had secured a patent covering the right 
to a monopoly of this business, and on the ground of this 
exclusive privilege the planters had gone forward and 
erected the trading-house just mentioned. But the patent 
secured by Allerton was loosely drawn, and the rivals of 
the Plymouth people still insisted on invading a territory 
so promising in profits, and there were no fixed boundaries 
to liinder their approaches. This new Warrick patent 
defined the limits of their concession, and gave to the Pil- 
grims exclusive rights in a section beginning at Augusta 
and ininning thirteen miles down the river and extending 
fifteen miles on each side of it. 

Much trouble came of this afterwards, but for the time 
being, when the colonists were in the throes of their hard 
struggle for financial freedom, it was a great thing to have 
full legal possession of a section of the country which 
afforded so many advantages for remunerative trafiic with 
the Indians. The Pilgrims conducted this business through 
an agent until 1638, when they leased it for one-sixth of 
the profits. Attention has been called by one of our writers 
to the interesting fact that it was out of this " one-sixth 
of the profits " that the law-and-order loving people of 
Plymouth built their first prison. 

Here the music falls into a minor key, and the story is 
anything but pleasant to relate. For if good fortune 
waited on the colonists in the matter of the 
The Castine Warrick patent, and in the most of their efforts 
venture ^^ g^^ ahead, there were yet accompanying 

misfortunes. They had escaped from one sea 
of troubles, but they were speedily launched into another. 
Just when they were moving forward to assured success in 
meeting all their obligations, Allerton, to whom the Pil- 
grims owed much, as they themselves were ever ready to 
acknowledge, but who was by nature rather more venture- 
some than scrupulous, and who seems to have deteriorated 
with age, not only exceeded his authority in business trans- 
actions, but took advantage of his position as trusted agent 
of the colonists to work for his own private interest. 

It is not necessary here to go into details and uncover 



THE PILGRIMS 279 

item by item the tricks and selfish schemes of this man. 
It is enough to say that a partnership was formed between 
Allerton and some of the London Adventurers, a grant of 
land was secured on the Penobscot River, a slock of goods 
was bought, an agent was engaged to conduct the busi- 
ness, and trade was opened at a point on the river and 
within their grant which is now known as Castine. To 
cover appearances and make them serviceable the colonists 
were invited to join in the project. Inasmuch as the 
trading-post on the Penobscot was sure to become a for- 
midable rival to the trading-post on the Kennebec, it seemed 
wiser to the Plymouth men to fall in with Allerton's shrewd 
suggestion and take their chances in the enterprise. Goods, 
such as corn and wampum, were furnished them, and the 
post was assisted in procuring the boats needed to conduct 
exchanges with the natives. In this way and on this basis 
the new venture was started. 

The result was disheartening, but not surprising. For 
it was soon discovered that the London end of the syndicate 
was sending all its best and most attractive goods to the 
Penobscot rather than to Plymouth, and that the Penob- 
scot end was sending its fat profits, not to Plymouth, but 
to London. It was a scheme to elicit admiration from the 
high officials of some of our modern insurance companies. 
Disaster followed trickery. When Asliley, a disreputable 
character, had been discharged from his agency, and Willet, 
an honest man and a representative of the Plymouth in- 
terests, had been put in his place, and things had gone 
well for a while, the French took advantage of his tem- 
porary absence from the post, disarmed the servants, and 
carried off something like five hundred pounds worth of 
merchandise. Three years later, in 1635, the French ap- 
peared again. This time they came with sufficient force 
to take complete possession of the post and all the goods. 
This was a heavy loss, and it delayed the happy issue out 
of their troubles for which the Pilgrims were ' earnestly 
praying and faithfully working. 



280 THE PILGRIMS 

XIII 

Had the debit side of the ledger received no entries be- 
yond those which stood in the books when the colonists first 
began to operate under the new arrangement, 
Debt in- \}^q g^d of the long, hard struggle would have 
creased by been in sight much sooner. But losses, such 
bringing ^g have been indicated, and various set-backs 
over Ley- postponed the happy day. 
den asso- ^o add to the weight of obligations already 

ciates upon them, the Plymouth contingent of the 

Pilgrims assumed the entire expense of bring- 
ing over two companies of their Lcyden associates. One 
of these companies, consisting of thirty-five persons, arrived 
in the late summer of 1629. These were landed at Salem. 
In the spring of the next year the second company came. 
These were landed at Charlestown, and made their way to 
Plymouth, as did those who landed at Salem, in small coast- 
ing boats. The transportation of so many cost a large 
sum. It was set down as " above five hundred and fifty 
pounds, besides their fetching from Salem and the Bay." 
This was not the whole of it, however. These newcomers 
were poor, and they had to be supported — some of them 
for a year and some of them for a year and a half — until 
they were in condition to support themselves. " And this 
charge of maintaining them all this while was little less 
than the former sum." The former sum was just given as 
" above five hundred and fifty pounds." 

This, however, is a story at once so tender and so credi- 
table to all concerned, that Bradford must be allowed to tell 
it in his own words : 

" These things I note more particularly, for sundry 
regards. 

" First, to show a rare example herein of brotherly love 
and Christian care in performing their promises and coven- 
ants to their brethren, to, and in a sort beyond their power, 
that they should venture so desperately to engage them- 
selves to accomplish this thing, and bear it so cheerfully; 
for they never demanded, much less had, any repayment 
of all these great sums thus disbursed. 



THE PILGRIMS 281 

" Second, It must needs be that there was more than of 
man in their achievements, that should thus readily stir up 
the hearts of such able friends to join in partnership with 
them in such a care, and cleave so faithfully to them as they 
did, in so great adventures ; and the more because the most 
of them never saw their faces to this day ; there being 
neither kindred, alhance or other acquaintance or relatives 
between any of them than hath been before mentioned ; it 
must needs be therefore the special work and hand of God. 

" Third, that these poor people here in the wilderness 
should, notwithstanding, be enabled in time to repay all 
these engagements, and many more unjustly brought upon 
them through the unfaithfulness of some, and many other 
great losses which they sustained, which will be made mani- 
fest, if the Lord be pleased to give life and time. In the 
meantime, I cannot but admire His ways and works towards 
His servants, and humbly desire to bless His holy name for 
His great mercies hitherto." 

What a resplendent memorial window does this passage 
make in the simple but magnificent temple of civil and reli- 
gious liberty which the Pilgrims were erecting in the 
wilderness ! 

Further embarrassment was Imported Into the situation 
by the addition of the names of four men in London to the 
list of eight or nine colonists who had become 
Difficulties responsible for the proper management of the 
increased financial aif airs of the colony. These men were 
Sherley, Beachamp, Andrews, and Hatherly. 
It was thought that these names would increase the credit 
of the colony and greatly facilitate the doing of business 
abroad. Of the value of Hatherly's services we shall learn 
more as we proceed. But Sherley, while pretending great 
regard for the Pilgrims, and for a time trusted by them, 
either through business incompetency, or carelessness, or 
downright dishonesty, added greatly to the bjarden of the 
colony and delayed final settlement much longer than 
otherwise would have been necessary. 



282 THE PILGRIMS 



XIV 

This is, perhaps, the most suitable place for saying that, 
within the quarter of a century in which the Pilgrims were 
struggling with their debts, there were other 
Helpful accessions to the colony besides those brought 

accessions over from Leyden. Some of these were men of 
to the exceptional intelligence and energy, and they 

colony were exceedingly useful to the settlement. 

This is also true of a number of those who 
joined the colony from Leyden. Both amongst their old 
associates and in the groups of new friends who from time 
to time cast in their lot with them, there were accessions 
whose presence added to the material and moral resources 
of the little company, and made it easier to secure progress. 
A few of these will have mention further on in connection 
with special services which they rendered. The names of 
others, and the contributions they made through their char- 
acters and deeds to the welfare of the Pilgrim state, may 
have record here. 

One of the most vigorous and helpful men who joined the 
colony after the first settlement had been made at Ply- 
mouth was Timothy Hatherly. He was one of 
Timothy ^^^ Merchant Adventurers, as well as one of the 
Hatherly four Londoners who became associated with the 
group of colonists in their efforts to extricate 
the settlement from debt. Goodwin says that he had been 
over twice before; but in 1632 he identified himself more 
intimately with the Pilgrims and settled at Scituate. He 
counted but a imit in the census of the new state ; but he 
counted much more than a unit in pluck and foresight. 
He knew how to plan and push. His mind was active, and 
he was full of the spirit of enterprise. For those days his 
wealth was considerable; and though he lost heavily at 
times by fire and in other ways, he never failed to recover 
his financial standing. Undertakings which promised to 
be of advantage to the colony were sure to have his cordial 
support. Good sense and catholicity of temper marked his 



THE PILGRIMS 283 

conduct. When the craze of opposition to the Quakers 
was at its height he refused to yield to it, and kept his head 
level. Like Cudworth and Robinson, Hatherly lost the 
favor of the authorities by his attitude in this controversy, 
and for a while had to retire into the background ; but his 
merit was recognized, and in the long run he lost nothing 
by his wise and brave stand against a zeal that was 
without knowledge. 

William Thomas was a notable man. He came to Ply- 
mouth in 1630. He was one of the Merchant Adventurers, 
and in this capacity reference has already 
"William been made to him. He was of the sturdy type 
Thomas ^f Englishmen, and he stood for things high- 

toned and manly. The charge of illiberality in 
his rehgious views and conduct has been laid at liis door, 
but neither his personal integrity, nor his efficiency, nor his 
interest in the good of the colony, has ever been called in 
question. He removed from Plymouth to Barnstable, and 
later he became a resident of Marshfield. He represented, 
first Barnstable, and then Marshfield, in the General Court ; 
and for seven years he was one of the governor's assist- 
ants. The town in which he spent his closing years still 
cherishes his memory; and a line of brave and worthy 
descendants has honored the name he gave them. 

John Jenney was a man of mark. He reached the colony 
from Ley den in 1623. Not all at once, but in the later 

years of his hfe he made his presence felt de- 
John cisively in the business activities of the com- 
Jenney munity. He built a grist-mill. The mill did 

not do its work to the entire satisfaction of 
the people who were served by it ; but it was a move in the 
right direction. He engaged in ship-building ; and induced 
a dozen or more of the leading men of the colony to join 
him in meeting the expense of the construction of the larg- 
est vessel that had been put on the stocks up to the time of 
his death in 1644. He was one of the eight men appointed 
to cooperate with the governor and his assistants in for- 
mulating a code of laws. He was a public-spirited and 
energetic citizen ; and he did much to keep things going. 



284 THE PILGRIMS 

Thomas Willet was a man whose career, as we study it 
from this distance, is exceedingly interesting. He came 
from Leyden, and reached Plymouth in 1630. 
Thomas jj^ ^g^g then only about twenty years of age. 

Willet jj^ j^g ability and character, however, he gave 

promise of great usefulness, and this promise 
was fulfilled. Not long after his arrival he was drafted 
into service in connection with Edward Ashley in the man- 
agement of the trading-post at Castine, on the Penobscot 
River. Ashley, as has just been said, was a man in every 
way disreputable. In a short time he was arrested for 
wrong-doing and sent back to England. Willet succeeded 
to the business. Things went on swimmingly for a while; 
but the robbery of the station, already mentioned, by the 
French in 1632, and the practical confiscation of the en- 
tire stock of goods and the expulsion of the English from 
the post three years later by D'Aulney, who was acting 
under orders of the French authorities, brought this under- 
taking to a disastrous issue, and changed the course of 
Willet's life. But it did not change the respect in which he 
was held by his associates in the colony, nor block his way 
to conspicuous and honorable usefulness. He was trans- 
ferred to the trading-post on the Kennebec. Not long after, 
on account, no doubt, of his knowledge of the language, of 
his keen business sense and uprightness in dealing with 
men, and of his agreeable manners and tact, we find him 
shifted over into trade with the Dutch at Manhattan. 

All through, Willet was an alert and trusted citizen. 
He became captain of the little company of rustic soldiers 
at Plymouth. For fourteen years he was assistant to the 
governor. 

The fact, however, which gives to the man a peculiar 
eminence in history, is that he was the first mayor of the 
city of New York. He was appointed to this office by the 
commissioners of the king when the English came in and 
captured the settlement in 1664. It was then only a Dutch 
trading-station ; but in variety of races and tongues repre- 
sented among its people, it was already giving promise of 
the greatness to which it was to rise. The Dutch recaptured 
the place in 1673. Willet then came back to the colony. 



4 



THE PILGRIMS 285 

Still, it will never cease to be an interesting incident that it 
was a member of the Pilgrim Colony who headed the long 
line of distinguished men who have presided over the des- 
tinies and guided the affairs of the metropolis of our nation. 
A great grandson of this first mayor was also mayor of 
New York. Near the close of his life, Willet transferred his 
residence from Plymouth to Swansea. On the succession 
of the Dutch to power at the mouth of the Hudson, he re- 
turned to his new home; and there, a year later, honored 
and beloved, he passed on to his reward. 

There were others who were helpful to the colony in many 
ways during the years of severe struggle in which the brave 

leaders were trying to lift its burdens and gain 
Other g^ secure footing for themselves and their 

names institutions. John Atwood, Isaac Robinson, 

Nathaniel Morton, the Southworths, Constant 
and Thomas, and others of similar abiUty and character 
fall into this class. All that it is necessary to say about 
them is, that they were efficient aids to the colony in those 
days of hard wrestHng when every atom of help counted. 



XV 

It is refreshing, however, to be able to write that all 
their burdens, piled one after another on top of the load 

they set out to carry, while they staggered 
Free at a,nd sometimes dismayed them for the moment, 

^^^* did not crush the Pilgrims. Year after year 

they planted their slowly widening fields ; they 
gathered their steadily increasing harvests ; they nourished 
their herds and flocks ; they plucked wealth from the seas ; 
they sold their surplus products to neighboring colonies 
and the red men of the forest; they bartered their goods, 
bought at high prices and brought from afar, in exchange 
for otter and beaver, and turned over their gains to their 
creditors on the other side of the Atlantic. They planned 
carefully ; they worked hard ; they lived frugally ; they de- 
nied themselves comforts, and many things even which might 



286 THE PILGRIMS 

have been considered necessary to their general welfare, In 
order to meet their obligations and clean the slate of debt. 
They were often at their wits' end, and in doubt which way 
to turn and what to do next ; but they never hesitated long, 
and when disappointments and disasters overtook them they 
soon raUied, and gathering up what strength they had and 
using all available resources, they pressed straight on to 
their goal. 

The struggle was protracted. Concerning the exact time 
when it could be said of the colony that it was free from all 
indebtedness, the writers differ. Dr. Morton Dexter has a 
passage in which he says : " But good fortune smiled upon 
them and by great exertions they appear to have paid all 
their obligations in full in the course of 1633." He draws 
this conclusion from a statement made by Bradford. But 
a close examination of Bradford's language leads one to 
question whether the inference is warranted. His words 
are : " It pleased the Lord to enable them this year to send 
home a good quantity of beaver, besides paying all their 
charges, and debts at home." It was accounts at the 
home end of the line — " all their charges, and debts 
at home," of which Bradford was speaking, and not the 
heavier accounts across in England. Goodwin, as seen in 
the quotation which stands at the head of this chapter, 
adjourns this happy consummation to 1646. This is no 
doubt the correct date. Had the Pilgrims received due 
credit for all their assignments ; or had they been able to 
secure a satisfactory settlement of their affairs, their de- 
liverance from debt, even in spite of all the misfortunes they 
suffered and the injustices and frauds which were practised 
upon them, would have come much earlier. 

Still dehverance came at length. After a steady and de- 
termined effort, which stretched on through a period of 
more than a quarter of a century, to accomplish their pur- 
pose and gain this high vantage ground, the hour came 
when the Pilgrims owed no man anything. It was an hour 
for the doxology. 



XIV 
RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS 



They treated the Indians with justice and good faith. 

George F. Hoab. 

The course of conduct pursued towards them had been praiseworthy 
in a singular degree. The Indians were a people extremely difficult to 
deal with by reason alike of their mental and of their moral defects ; but they 
were treated equitably and generously. — John G. Palfrey. 

In 1676, it was as truly as proudly said by Governor Josiah Winslow, 
of Plymouth, "I think I can clearly say, that before these present troubles 
broke out, the EngHsh did not possess one foot of land in this Colony but 
what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the Indian proprietors." 

Alexander Young. 

The people of Plymouth never did, until after Philip's war, claim or 
obtain any lands belonging to the Indians, by violence or conquest. After 
the defeat and dispersion of the Wampanoags, fifty-six years after the first 
settlement, then, and not till then, were the lands occupied by them, seques- 
trated by the Conquerors, for the benefit of wounded soldiers, and those 
who had been ruined by the desolations of that fierce contest. 

Jonathan Prescott Hall. 

Through the instrumentality of Governor Edward Winslow, the Eng- 
lish Parliament passed an act for promoting and propagating the gospel 
amongst the Indians in New England; and a society was incorporated for 
the pm-pose of receiving donations which the Conmaissioners of the United 
Colonies were authorized to appropriate as they saw fit. 

Francis Baylies. 

The natives of Cape Cod . . . and their successors ever remained 
fast friends of the whites. Indeed, the very extensive missionary labor 
among them was far more effective and enduring than the justly famed work 
in Massachusetts by John Eliot. — John A. Goodwin. 



XIV 
RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS 

SMALL wits have a fashion of saying that the Pilgrims, 
on reaching these shores, first fell on their knees and 
then on the aborigines. This is cheap punning and 
rather tame caricature. The simple fact is, that these na- 
tives of the land were dealt with in a way to meet at once the 
conditions of justice and mercy to savage tribes and of 
safety and growth to Christian colonists. 



It is not to be disguised that the Pilgrims had a vivid 
conception and a wholesome dread of the blood-thirstiness 
of the Indians. They shared the common view 
Feared ^f their day that these people were malignant 

ferocity ^^d treacherous to the last degree. One of 

of the ijjg strongest objections to going to North 

savages America grew out of this fear of the red men. 

Going there, they would " be in continual 
danger," so it was said, " of the savage people, who are 
cruel, barbarous, and most treacherous, being most furious 
in their rage, and merciless when they overcame ; not being 
content only to kill, and take away life, but delight to tor- 
ment men in the most bloody manner that may be, flaying 
some alive with the shells of fishes, cutting off the members 
and joints of others by piecemeal, and, broiling on the 
coals, eat the collops of their flesh in their sight while they 
live, with other cruelties too horrible to be related." 

The exiles as a body did not entertain this estimate of 
the Indians ; but they knew that they were savages, untu- 
tored, jealous of encroachments, revengeful, often more 
inhuman than death ; and that it would be no child's play to 

19 



290 THE PILGRIMS 

overcome their opposition, maintain amicable relations with 
them, and on grounds considered their own by right of im- 
memorial inheritance, open lands and build up homes and 
lay the foundations of another and higher style of hfe. 

n 

At the opening of this rehearsal of the story of the In- 
dians and the relations of the Pilgrims to them during the 

earher years of the settlement at Plymouth, 
Providential Qj^g cannot help noting how marked was the 
preparations providence by which the way was prepared for 
for coming ^}^g colonists to make their landfall in safety, 
of the J^J^(^| permanently to establish their homes with 

Pilgrims ^}^g fewest possible chances of friction and 

danger. 
Forerunning these, were other providences, fitting into 
this one as cog to mesh, which were quite as significant in 

their bearing on the final issue. How striking, 
An unseen foj. instance, that after all their three or four 
V^^ot years of conference, and all their efforts to do 

at the something else, the Pilgrims were shut up to 

helm just the one course they took. How striking 

again that at a most critical moment the winds 
and the currents, quite independent of the gratuitous and 
unproven charge of treachery on the part of the captain of 
the vessel he sailed, were made to overrule the intentions of 
the voyagers, so that instead of being carried to the mouth 
of the Hudson they were set down on the coast of Eastern 
Massachusetts. To devout minds, or minds which beheve 
that God is in his world to-day as he was yesterday, and 
that he is evermore a controlling factor in human affairs, 
there will always seem something divine in the direction 
given to the ship which bore our exiles to their high des- 
tiny. The shore was bleak, and the soil was far from 
possessing the fertihty of the fat river valleys ; but this 
craft of imd3rLng fame was conducted by an invisible pilot 
to the right haven — a haven made ready to insure the 
safety of the precious freight she had brought across the 
iwaters. 



THE PILGRIMS 291 

Consider for a little the situation. Had the savages 
existed to the number which had once occupied the territory 
about to be possessed by these Englishmen, 
The Pa- even though they had been far less ferocious 
tirxets an- qjj^ cruel than the imagination of Eurox>eans 
nihilated j^g^^j pictured them, they would have constituted 
a formidable foe, and the peril of invading 
their lands and attempting to displace them would have 
been very great. The Patuxets formerly lived in this 
section of the country. Long before the arrival of the 
whites on these shores influences were at work, such as fierce 
tribal wars and contagious diseases, which were decimating 
the Indians, and portending in no long time the extinction 
of the race. The Patuxets, so we are led to infer, were 
sharers in this general decay. But the ruin of the tribe 
was hastened and made complete by the breaking out of a 
destructive plague four years before the coming of the Pil- 
grims. The fatal disease continued its ravages for two 
years. What it was has not been determined — only it is 
known to have been neither yellow fever nor smallpox. It 
began near the Saco River in Maine and worked its blight- 
ing way south as far as Narragansett Bay. White men 
were not affected by it. Indians went down before it like 
grass before a prairie fire. 

In this twofold way, immediately before the arrival of 
the Pilgrims, the Plymouth region was swept practically 
clean of its native inhabitants. Only a single member 
so far as known of the Patuxets was left aHve. Of him 
we shall have occasion to say more presently. 

Other contiguous tribes were well-nigh annihilated. The 
plague had spared the Pequods and Narragansetts ; but 
other forms of disease and wars were making 
Other fatal inroads on their numbers and strength, 

tribes Qf ^}^g tribes seriously affected by the plague it 

smitten j^g^g been estimated that nineteen out of every 

twenty of the population were taken off. In 
the Massachusetts Confederacy the pestilence reduced the 
effective warriors from something like three thousand to 
about one hundred. 

The door for entrance at Plymouth was more than ajar. 



292 THE PILGRIMS 

God in his own mysterious way had swung it wide open. 
By landing just there and at just that time, the dangers of 
attacks upon the Pilgrims by the savages were reduced 
to their lowest terms. 

Ill 

The first contact of the Pilgrims with the Indians was of 
a nature to startle them and put them on their guard. In 

each of their three exploring expeditions they 
A start- came close to small bands of savages ; but in 
ling intro- only one of them did these people of the forest 
duction to display any disposition to make a stand and 
the In- show fight. This was on their final tour in 

dians search of the right spot at which to make their 

landing. At the close of one of their most 
wearisome days of travel and observation, at " about mid- 
night," in their little extemporized barricade, they " heard 
a hideous and great cry." After a little investigation they 
concluded the cry came from " a company of wolves, or such 
like beasts." It was not wolves, but Indians prowling about. 
The next morning the cry was heard again ; and this time 
the cry was accompanied with arrows. The arrows were 
answered with musket shots ; and altogether it was quite a 
little skirmish. When the answering fire got too hot for 
the Indians, they turned on their heels and fled. The Pil- 
grims followed them up for a short distance, " and shouted 
once or twice, and shot off two or three pieces. . . . This 
they did, that they might conceive that they were not afraid 
of them or any way discouraged." 

The Indians who made this attack were of the tribe of 
the Nausites, whose headquarters were at Nauset, or what 

is now Eastham. They were naturally and 
Attacking justly incensed against the whites on account 
Indians ^f ^j^ atrocious conduct of Captain Thomas 

were Hunt, who, back in 1614, while his ship was 

Nausites lying at anchor in the harbor, seized seven of 

their number, to which he added twenty kid- 
napped from the interior of the country, and then sailed 
away with them to Europe where they were sold into 



THE PILGRIMS 293 

slavery. Moreover, these were the Indians from whom the 
exploring party of the Pilgrims had taken the com which 
they had stored up for the winter. It is no wonder that 
they were hostile, and that two years after the Hunt 
outrage, when a French fishing-smack was cast away on 
Cape Cod, they set upon the helpless mariners, and pursued 
and slaughtered them till only three were left ; and that 
still more recently they had slain three Englishmen belong- 
ing to Gorges' ships or parties. Nor is it any wonder that 
this fresh importation of white men, who had already helped 
themselves to supplies from their rude gamers, filled their 
minds with alarm, and kindled in them anew the determina- 
tion to be avenged in blood for the grievous wrongs done 
them, and on no pretenses to be tricked again. It was this 
lurking sense of past injustice which sharpened and winged 
the arrows against this Httle band of well-meaning home- 
seekers. 

On neither side was any one hurt; but the Pilgrims, 
thinking no doubt that this experience of attack and con- 
flict might be many times repeated, called the 
Skirmish place the " First Encounter." In this desig- 
called nation they were falling in, as was the custom 

"First Qf ^^ jiay, with Old Testament usage. In 

Encounter" Samuel, for instance, the place where Abner's 
twelve men tried conclusions with the twelve 
men of Joab is called " The field of the sharp knives." 
If this mere picket-line engagement may appear slightly 
amusing in our eyes, it is not to be forgotten that the busi- 
ness wore an aspect altogether different back there on that 
gray December morning, in that unexplored wilderness, not 
far from three hundred years ago. 

IV 

After these experiences, save that on one occasion, about 
the middle of February, some tools which Standish and 

Cooke had left in the woods were taken by the 
Samoset's natives, all the intercourse which was carried 
welcome q^ between the Pilgrims and the Indians for 

three months was now and then catching 
glimpses of each other. 



294 THE PILGRIMS 

But one morning, well on into the spring, when the days 
had begun to be " fair " and " warm," and the birds were 
singing, " in the woods most pleasantly," and " some garden 
seed was sown," there fell upon the ears of a few of the 
leading colonists who were then in grave dehberation on 
military questions, the sweet but surprising word — " Wel- 
come." It was sweet because it was in English, and 
conveyed a sentiment all were glad to hear. 

Nevertheless, the sound of it caused every pulse to beat 
quick with alarm. For the salutation was uttered by a 
" savage," who broke in upon the httle parliament of wise 
ones " very boldly " and " all alone." It was soon discov- 
ered that this intruder was not an enemy in disguise, bent 
on spying out the weakness of the colony and betraying 
them all to their destruction, but an honest man, " free in 
speech, so far as he could express his mind," sincere, and 
with no thoughts or feelings other than those of the utmost 
friendliness. He was the first Indian with whom the colo- 
nists came into personal touch. 



The name of this child of the forest was Samoset. He 
had learned some broken English from the Englishmen 

who came to fish on the coast of Maine. He 
Some ac- ^^g ^^j^ original proprietor of the place and 
count of chief of the tribe located in what is now known 
Samoset j^g \\^q town of Bristol in that state. Several 

months before the arrival of the Mai/flower 
he had been brought from his home in the east to Cape Cod. 
He still lingered in the region. Conscious of his own 
friendly interest, and apparently free from any suspicion 
of harm to himself, this visitor to the newcomers was dis- 
posed to make himself at home at once. Indeed, he was dis- 
posed to make himself quite too much at home to suit the 
cautious notions of his hosts. He would have gone straight 
into the rendezvous the Pilgrims had erected, had he been 
allowed. He did not hesitate, however, to make his wants 
known. He asked for beer ; for in association with Eng- 



THE PILGRIMS 295 

Hshmen he had learned something about them beside their 
language. His courteous entertainers went beyond his 
asking and gave him " strong water, and biscuit and butter 
and cheese, and pudding, and a piece of a mallard, all of 
which he liked well." One who has seen a hungry Indian 
eat can readily understand the hearty rehsh with which 
these savory articles of diet were devoured. 

Nor was this the full extent of the kindness shown to 
the red man. He was " stark naked," or practically so. 
These compassionate disciples of a compassionate Master, 
shivering themselves, no doubt, from the sharp winds 
which had arisen on that March day, and not without a 
keen sense, in the trying circumstances in which they were 
placed, of the prudential value of a hospitality the most 
thoughtful and generous, " cast a horseman's coat about 
him." There in that circle, with his nakedness covered 
and his stomach full, he must have felt unusually com- 
fortable. It is not strange that he forgot the instinctive 
reticence of his race and became garrulous. " All the 
afternoon we spent in conversation with him." The name 
of the place where they then were he told them was Patuxet. 
He also told them of the fearful ravages of the plague, to 
which reference has just been made, by which the native 
inhabitants were swept away till " neither man, woman, nor 
child " remained. 

It was only human in him to want to stay longer with 
these good friends who had robes with which to cover his 
back, and liquors with which to warm his marrow and 
loosen his tongue, and wild duck with which to satisfy his 
appetite and transport him into an elysium of content. 
" We would gladly have been rid of him at night ; but he 
was not willing to go this night. Then we thought to carry 
him on shipboard ; wherewith he was well content, and went 
into the shallop; but the wind was high, and the water 
scant, that it could not return back. We lodged him that 
night at Stephen Hopkins' house, and watched him." The 
next day he was successfully dismissed. But he went away 
bearing gifts. The leaders presented him " a knife, a 
bracelet and a ring." Moreover, they secured a promise 
from him — which could not have been very difficult — ■ 



296 THE PILGRIMS 

" within a night or two to come again," and to bring with 
him some of their neighbors of his race. They asked also 
to have furs brought to them by him and his friends when 
they should come the next time, in order that trade might 
be opened with them. 

As might have been anticipated, " the savage " returned 
the very next day. His satisfaction in " strong water " 

and " mallard " was too keen to peraiit him to 
Acquaint- linger long on the way to such another feast, 
ance made jjg « brought with him jSve other tall, proper 
with other men." These men were of the " complexion " 
Indians of " Enghsh gypsies." They had " no hair, 

or very little, on their faces." " On their 
heads" they had hair reaching " to their shoulders ; " 
" only " it was " cut before." Some of them had their hair 
" turned up before with a feather, broadside like a fan." 
Another with more of the Indian dude in him than the rest, 
had his head ornamented with a fox tail. They were 
dressed in the height of fashion. " They had, every man, 
a deer skin on him ; and the principal of them had a wild- 
cat's skin, or such like, on his arm. They had, most of 
them, long hosen, up to their groins, close made ; and above 
their groins to their waist, another leather. They were 
altogether hke the Irish trousers," 

With them " they brought three or four skins." It was 
Sunday, however; and Sunday was no day for trucking. 
It will surprise many, whose one idea of the Pilgrims is of 
their uncompromising conformity to the letter which killeth, 
to know that, while they would not buy nor sell on the Lord's 
Day, they were sufficiently liberal to meet the obligations of 
a sympathetic and open-handed hospitahty. " We gave 
them entertainment as we thought was fitting them. They 
did eat liberally of our English victuals. They made 
semblance unto us of friendship and amity. They sang and 
danced after their manner, like antics." As soon as possi- 
ble, these visitors whose coming was so inopportune were 
sent away. On going, the " five other tall, proper men " 
left the few skins they brought — showing thus their confi- 
dence in the new neighbors, and " promised within a night 
or two " to visit them again and add to the stock of skins 



THE PILGRIMS 297 

for barter. It ought to be said that they were not allowed 
to go away empty. " The Sabbath Day, when we sent them 
from us, we gave every one of them some trifles, especially 
the principal of them." It ought also to be said that this 
delegation brought back the tools which had been taken 
from the woods where Standish and Cooke had carelessly 
left them. It was to the credit of the Indians to do this, 
as it was to the credit of the Pilgrims to pay for the corn 
which they had taken. 

Samoset, however, was not so easily bowed out. He 
" either was sick, or feigned himself so ; and would not go 

with them, and stayed with us till Wednesday 
Samoset morning." Then he was sent to ascertain the 

not easily reason why his associates had not kept their 
bowed out word and returned. He must have gone in the 

best of humor ; for on his departure these 
shrewd diplomatists put him under fresh bonds of gratitude 
by giving him " a hat, a pair of stockings and shoes, and a 
piece of cloth to be about his waist." 

The Pilgrims never had to wait long for Samoset. A 
friend from the beginning, after his first introduction to 

their " English victuals," he was always a 
Samoset prompt messenger. Sent away on Wednesday, 

brings }^g ^^s back on Thursday. This time he was 

Squanto accompanied by an exceedingly interesting 

^^^ companion, and he bore important tidings. 

Massasoit Along with three others he brought Squanto, 

and announced that Massasoit, the chief of the 
Indians who were nearest to them, was close by and awaited 
an interview. 

VI 

This Squanto was the only known survivor of the Patuxet 
tribe. He had been one of the unhappy, and yet in every 
way fortunate victims of the vile treachery of 
Squanto ^n English sea-captain. The despicable plot- 

ter of this wicked scheme was Captain Thomas 
Hunt, and in explanation of the hostility of the Nausites, 
the shameless transaction has already been recounted. 



298 THE PILGRIMS 

Bradford, in " Mourt's Relation," tells the story briefly, 
but he puts upon it the stamp of his righteous indignation. 
He " deceived the people, and got them under color of 
trucking with them, twenty out of this very place where we 
inhabit, and seven from the Nausites, and carried them 
away, and sold them for slaves for twenty pounds a man, 
like a wretched man that cares not what mischief he does for 
his profit." 

Squanto fell into good hands. Though transported to 
Spain and there bartered for gold, he found his way after 
a while to London. During the six years before the Pil- 
grims set foot on Plymouth Rock, he was in close associa- 
tion with the English. He learned their language, became 
accustomed to their manners and ways, and acquired the 
preparation needed for the special service he was to render 
in the later period of his life. For three years he is said 
to have had a home with Gorges. This is more than proba- 
ble; for the relation which Gorges had with colonization 
in the New World, and the interest he had in getting all the 
information he could about the country and the people, 
would naturally lead him to shelter and aid any Indian 
who might be of assistance to him in the future. He is 
known to have taken three of the five natives, whom Captain 
George Weymouth carried back with him in the Archangel 
when he returned from his trading and exploring voyage 
to the northern coast of New England in 1605. One dis- 
tinguished writer thinks Squanto may have been one of 
these three ; but this is not likely. In so simple and recent 
a matter Bradford and his associates could not easily have 
been deceived. 

Whatever there may be of a merely conjectured nature in 
the record, however, it is certain that our Indian was 
brought back to America in one of Gorges' ships, which was 
then in command of Captain Dermer. Meantime Squanto 
had spent a good portion of his sojourn in London with 
John Slaney, a merchant of some distinction evidently, and 
the treasurer of the Newfoundland Company. Connected as 
he was with both Gorges and Slaney, it is possible that this 
captive may have had more than one round trip across the 
Atlantic. At any rate, he was in circumstances from the 



THE PILGRIMS 299 

hour in which he was kidnapped to the hour of his release 
to learn fast the lessons which the Overruling One had to 
teach liim in order that he might do successfully his ap- 
pointed work. 

There can be no justification of a crime like this of 
which Squanto was the victim ; but, as in the case of Joseph, 
the sale of this helpless Indian into bondage was an act of 
wickedness which God turned about for good. He maketh 
the wrath of man to praise him. He was a friend God- 
sent to a God-sent people, to be language to them when they 
could not make their own language understood, and to be 
hands to them in the performance of tasks to which their 
own hands were not trained, and to be their shelter and 
defense in many an emergency when misunderstandings had 
clouded the sky, and storms of anger were threatening to 
break upon them. 

Bradford's testimony concerning the value of Squanto to 
the colony is simple and touching. " He was their inter- 
preter, and was a special instrument sent of God for their 
good beyond their expectations. He directed them how to 
set their com, when to take fish, and to procure other com- 
modities, and was also their pilot to bring them to unknown 
places for their profit and never left them till he died." 

He was far from perfect. He had not a httle of the 
personal ambition and not a few of the weaknesses which 
characterize his race. The increasing consciousness of his 
importance to the English settlers turned his head, and 
he hatched a plot which was unworthy of him and might 
have been, if successfully executed, most mischievous. Of 
this there will be more to say in another paragraph. When 
there were ends to be gained by exaggeration or by adroitly 
conceaHng facts, straightforward truth-telling was not one 
of his burning passions. 

But Bradford knew his worth, and though he did not 
justify him in his scheme to supplant Massasoit by stirring 
up jealousy and strife between him and the Pilgrims, he 
continued to use him to the last. The end came in the late 
autumn of the second year after the settlement at Plymouth, 
at Monomoy, or what is now Chatham, when he was acting 
as pilot and interpreter on board the Swan on a trading 



300 THE PILGRIMS 

expedition to the south side of Cape Cod. The governor 
nursed him tenderly, and when he was gone, briefly told the 
story and paid to him this undying tribute : " At this place 
Squanto fell sick of an Indian fever, bleeding much at 
the nose — which the Indians took for a symptom of death 
— and within a few days died there ; desiring the Governor 
to pray for him, that he might go to the Englishman's God 
in heaven, and bequeathed sundry of his things to sundry of 
his EngUsh friends, as remembrances of his love ; of whom 
they had a great loss." Verily, none knew this better nor 
appreciated it more keenly than Bradford. 



VII 

Massasoit was a man who was to mean much to the 
Pilgrims. His attitude was a hinge on which important 

events were to turn. At the time of his intro- 
Massasoit duction to the colonists he was at the head of 

the Pokanoket tribes ; and his official home 
was at Sowams, or what is now the town of Warren, Rhode 
Island, on Narragansett Bay. His own tribe was the 
Wampanoag. The Patuxets were of this confederacy ; but, 
as we have seen, they had been wiped out by the plague. 
There were eleven tribes, and some scattered bands here and 
there, still remaining under his authority ; and according 
to Cushman they were popularly supposed to be " the most 
cruel and treacherous people in all those parts, even like 
Hons." 

On this first visit to his new neighbors, Massasoit was 
accompanied by a little army of sixty warriors. His 

brother, Quadequina, and other members of his 
First visit cabinet, were also with hira. The occasion 
to Pil- called for the exercise of all the wit the Pil- 

grims grims possessed; but they were equal to the 

occasion. They were not without grave sus- 
picions ; still they put on a bold front and faced the situa- 
tion with a resolute daring. There were suspicions on the 
other side, and a cautious feeling of the way ; but at length 
the fears of both parties were sufficiently allayed to permit 



THE PILGRIMS 301 

of their approach to each other. There was a good deal of 
formality in the proceeding, for high dignitaries were to 
meet ; the chief of a commonwealth of white men with his 
staff, and the chief of a confederacy of red men with his 
train of advisers and followers. 

It was an hour after Massasoit's presence in the vicinity 
was announced before he appeared on Watson's Hill, which 
was across the brook from where the Pilgrims were holding 
their deliberations. Through Squanto he made it known 
that he wanted; a messenger sent to him. Winslow, the man 
for the hour when skill in diplomacy was required, and 
especially for an hour like this when not only diplomatic 
skill but a high degree of courage was needed, went over 
to him. He bore gifts, and gifts in this modem instance 
were not grounds of distrust, but tokens of friendship. 
After two or three hours of eating and parleying, it was 
decided that Winslow should remain as a hostage, while 
Massasoit under escort of a score of his faithful warriors 
should pass over to the rendezvous of the Pilgrims. He 
was met at the ravine by Standish and Allerton and six 
others bearing arms, and properly saluted and conducted 
into the presence of Governor Carver. The high officials 
kissed each others hands; and then all concerned in this 
interview fell to eating and drinking. The " strong 
water " which these exiles had brought with them was 
manifestly of high proof; and Massasoit was exceedingly 
fond of it. On this occasion he is said to have " drank a 
great draught, that made him sweat all the while after." 

The outcome of this conference was a treaty of amity 
which remained in force till long after the framers of it 
were in their graves. The terms of this treaty 
A treaty ^re drawn out in full by Bradford, and pub- 
formed lighe^j in ]^jg « History." It is enough to say 
of these terms that they are fair and open, and 
m^utual in the obligations and duties which they impose, and 
constitute a genuine compact of peace. 

In commenting on the agreement, Goodwin, in his " Pil- 
grim Republic," makes this fine point : " Voltaire says of 
William Penn's treaty — ' It was the only one ever con- 
cluded between savages and Christians that was not ratified 



302 THE PILGRIMS 

with an oath, and the only one that was never broken!' 
Yet here was such a treaty, and made long before Penn's 
birth, and it was ratified by no oath, nor was it broken 
during the hfetime of any of the contracting parties." 

It would be difficult to overestimate the value of this 
alUance to the Pilgrims. Massasoit found his account in it 

in the increased defense it would afford him 
Treaty of against his old-time and bitter enemies — the 
great Narragansetts. To Carver and his associates 

value j^ brought the prospect, and what in the issue 

proved to be the assurance, of peace, with their 
nearest savage neighbors ; and thus gave them the priceless 
opportunity, with the least likelihood of molestation, to 
secure a permanent footing in the land, to go and come 
without fear of ambuscades, to sow and reap their fields, 
to carry on their trade, and to plant their homes and 
develop their institutions. 



VIII 

In the midsummer of the year in which this treaty was 
drawn up and ratified, it seemed good to the Pilgrims, in 

order to show their confidence, express their 
Deputation friendship, and at the same time get in a httle 
visits stroke of important business, to send a deputa- 

Massasoit Hqj^ ^o Massasoit. Winslow and Hopkins were 

named for this duty. Squanto went along 
to act as guide and interpreter. It took the better part of 
two days to reach Sowams, which was forty miles away. 

The discomforts on the route and after arriving at their 
destination, were not a few. Food was scant. Indeed, the 

larder of this head of a powerful confederacy 
Serious y^g^g entirely empty, and these hungry ambassa- 

discomforts (Jors had to go to bed without supper. But the 

sleeping accommodations were of the nerve- 
trying order, especially at the grand sachem's. As the nar- 
rative has it : " He laid us on the bed with himself and his 
wife — they at one end, and we at the other ; it being 
only planks laid a foot from the ground, and a thin mat 



THE PILGRIMS 303 

upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room, 
pressed bj and upon us ; so that we were worse weary of 
our lodgings than of our journey." 

However, the object of the visit was attained. The pres- 
ents sent were gratefully received, the favors sought were 
cheerfully granted, and the bonds of friendship 
Good ac- between the Pilgrims and the Pokanokets were 
complished greatly strengthened. Massasoit was informed 
that he himself and any friends he might send 
to them would always be- welcome guests at Plymouth ; but 
in diplomatic language he was told that he must restrain 
his people from flocking to them in such throngs as they 
had been doing lately. Their suppUes, they feared, were 
not equal to this drain. Hearty assent was given to the 
request. The chief also promised to encourage trade, and 
to ascertain the names of the owners of the corn which the 
Pilgrims had taken at Cape Cod that they might be paid. 
This, as we have seen, was done. After spending a night 
and a day and another night with the sachem, with only 
a single meal, made from two fish, in which forty persons 
shared, the hungry, sleepy, and tired embassy set out for 
home. 

It is no wonder there was impatience to be off. For here 
are a few more strokes of rather vivid coloring painted into 
the picture of their nights. " Very importunate he was to 
have us stay with him longer; but we desired to keep the 
Sabbath at home ; and feared we should be lightheaded for 
want of sleep. For what with bad lodging, the savages' 
barbarous singing, for they use to sing themselves to 
sleep ; lice and fleas within doors, and mosquitos without, 
we could hardly sleep all the time of our being there. We 
much feared that if we should stay any longer, we should 
not be able to recover home for want of strength." 

They reached the plantation Saturday night. Many of 
their experiences were trying; but they had done a good 
bit of work. They had cemented the ties of friendship, and 
they had learned much by personal observation concerning 
the country adjacent to their settlement. 

This visit to Massasoit at his official seat in Sowams, or 
Warren, had to be followed very soon by an expedition to 



304 THE PILGRIMS 

Nauset, or Eastham. A boy by the name of BlUIngton, 
John Billington, Jr., one of a scapegrace family which 

had somehow been foisted upon the Pilgrims 
The Bil- qj^ Southampton, had strayed away into the 

lington boy woods and been lost. He wandered up and 
lost and down for five days. It was in the middle of 

found ^}^g warm season, and he could live on berries, 

and without harm sleep out in the open air or 
under the shelter of the trees. At length he came out at an 
Indian settlement, and through Massasoit's runners it was 
learned that the lost boy was at Nauset. This was a piece 
of rather starthng intelligence ; for while it was a relief to 
learn that the lad was still alive, it was in the nature of a 
challenge to discover that he was in the hands of the tribe 
which was so deeply incensed against the whites, and with 
whom they had had their first trial at arms. A party of ten 
were designated to go and bring the boy back. The men 
were well armed, and no doubt abundantly cautioned. In 
any event it was a delicate, and it might be a difficult, mis- 
sion on which they were sent. But all went well. The boy 
was secured and brought back. Some who were still cher- 
ishing the old wrath were mollified. The owners of the corn 
taken on the first exploring expedition were found, and 
arrangements made with them for satisfactory payment. 
On the whole the incident was turned to good account, and 
the Pilgrims were put on a better footing with the Nausites 
than they had been before. 

IX 

Difficulties, one after another, were met and mastered. 
Still the succession of difficulties seemed to be endless. Each 

new day brought its allotment of trial. There 
Startling ^^s always some exigency at hand, some press- 
rumors jj^g problem for these perplexed and sorely 

burdened Pilgrims to solve. While on the 
search for the lost boy, the rescuers heard the rumor that 
Massasoit had been taken by his old enemies and was then 
held in captivity by the Narragansetts. There was also 
a whisper in the air to the effect that Squanto had been 



THE PILGRIMS 305 

betrayed and killed. There was no truth in the report of 
the capture of Massasoit ; though it was true that he had 
been " put from his country ; " or crowded out of territory 
which hitherto had been supposed to belong to him and his 
tribes. Nevertheless, the floating hint of peril to the 
colonists was far from groundless. 

Corbitant, a sachem under Massasoit and chief of the 
Pocasset tribe, was opposed to the treaty which had been 
entered into between the Pilgrims and the 
Enmity Pokanoket Confederacy, and he not only 

and plots desired but intrigued to break it up. The re- 
ef Cor- moval of misunderstandings, and the strength- 
bitant ening of the alHance which had just been 
brought about between the Plymouth settlers 
and the Nausites, angered him still more. He saw his own 
influence waning, and he openly avowed his dissatisfaction 
with his chief, and began to do his best to excite prejudice 
against him. Very naturally he was suspected of having 
formed a secret compact with the Narragansetts. If so, 
the conspiracy was a dangerous one. By overt acts he soon 
made his real attitude known. Squanto and Hobomak, on 
the breaking out of these startling rumors, were sent to 
Namasket, now Middleborough, to ascertain how much fire 
there might be underneath all the smoke. 

This Hobomak was one of Massasoit's leading men. He 
had recently joined himself to the little company of white 
people on the coast. With these new-found 
Hobomak friends he remained in the bonds of an unflinch- 
ing loyalty and helpfulness down to the end of 
a long life. If there were temptations to which others 
yielded, this man was always true. 

The mention of Hobomak, and of his service to the 
Pilgrims, affords an opportunity to speak more fully of 
the plot hatched by Squanto, to which refer- 
Squanto's gnce was made a httle back. These two In- 
double dians were invaluable aids to the colonists, 
dealing p^j. g^ j^^^ ^j^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^j together and 

worked together most amicably, but at length 
they came to the parting of the ways. Squanto conceived 
the scheme of discrediting Massassoit in the estimation and 

20 



306 THE PILGRIMS 

confidence of the Pilgrims, and thereby advancing his own 
standing with them. Hobomak saw through his tricks, 
and did not hesitate to make known his suspicions. 

A suggested trip to Boston Harbor, in March of the 
second year at Plymouth, in search of food, brought the 
ambitious intrigues to light. Standish was to go on this 
expedition, accompanied by ten men and these two In- 
dians. " About the beginning of April " he actually 
started. Hobomak was ill at ease, and advised against it. 
Judging from mysterious movements which he had seen 
in Squanto, he was led to fear that the Massachusetts 
tribes were in league with the Narragansetts, and in the 
absence of Standish and his forces would fall on the settle- 
ment and wipe it out. This fear he disclosed to the cap- 
tain and others. Still the expedition started to go by water 
to their destination. 

While Standish was still in the home harbor, detained 
there by lack of wind, he heard the alarm guns sounding 
out from the fort, and came back. The occasion of the 
alarm was " an Indian belonging to Squanto's family," who 
" came running in seeming great fear, and told them that 
many of the Narragansetts, with Corbitant, and he thought 
also Massasoit, were coming against them; and he got 
away to tell them, not without danger." Hobomak refused 
to credit the story, and avowed an unshaken confidence in 
the loyalty of Massasoit. On investigation his faith was 
found to be justified. The trick was anything but a cun- 
ning one by which Squanto expected to promote his own 
interests. From this, " and other things of like nature," 
the Pilgrims " began to see that Squanto sought his own 
ends, and played his own game, by putting the Indians in 
fear, and drawing gifts from them to enrich himself, mak- 
ing them believe he could stir up war against whom he 
would, and make peace for whom he would." His real aim 
was to make the Indians think more of him than of Mas- 
sasoit, and to fill the minds of the English with the same 
idea. What he secured was the exposure of his own dupUc- 
ity, the distrust of the English, and the everlasting hate 
of Massasoit. Had it been possible for the enraged chief 
to lay hands on him, he would have made quick work with 



THE PILGRIMS 307 

our helpful Squanto. For in spite of all his faults of double 
dealing, this lone Indian, this soUtary remnant of a stricken 
tribe, was of great service to the Pilgrims. While he lacked 
the highmindedness and sterling integrity of Hobomak, he 
had qualities which Bradford and his associates knew well 
how to utilize for the benefit of the colony. It is difficult 
to see how these first settlers, with all their faith and fore- 
sight and courage, could have got on without the aid of 
these two men — Squanto and Hobomak. 

Returning now to the enmity and plots of Corbitant, it 
is to be said that both of these allies and agents of the 
Pilgrims were seized by Corbitant and threat- 
Squanto ened with instant death. For some reason the 

and Hobo- threat was not carried out on Squanto, though 
mak seized q^ knife held in the chief's hands was brandished 
about his bosom, and his death was widely her- 
alded. Hobomak, " being a strong and stout man," broke 
away from his captors, " and came to New Plymouth full of 
fear and sorrow for Squanto whom he thought to be slain." 

This created a condition of things which called for 
prompt and drastic measures. As the governor and his 
advisers well conceived, this was treatment " not fit to be 
borne; for if they should suffer their friends and messen- 
gers thus to be wronged, they should have none would 
cleave unto them, or give them any intelligence, or do 
them service afterwards ; but next they would fall upon 
themselves." Standish was put at the head of " fourteen 
men well armed," or most likely only " ten," as another 
account states, and ordered " to go and fall upon them in 
the night; and if they found that Squanto was killed, to 
cut off Corbitant's head; but not to hurt any but those 
that had a hand in it." The order was carried out. He 
whom the treacherous sachem wanted to kill for the reason 
that " if he were dead the English had lost their tongue," 
was found ahve and restored to the colony. Corbitant was 
brought to his knees, though he was " shy to come near 
them a long while after." Other tribes were impressed by 
the quick and vigorous action of the whites in ferreting 
out and punishing conspiracy, and hastened to enter into 
treaty aUiances with them. 



308 THE PILGRIMS 

Two or three of the Indians who were hurt In the night 
raid made on their village — hurt because they refused 
to keep out of the danger against which they were warned, 
were brought back to Plymouth, and healed by their 
" Surgeon," the beloved Samuel Fuller. Both the sharp 
discipline and the tender kindness were wholesome, but the 
end was not yet. There would be need of further discipline, 
as well as the ministry of much more kindness, before peace 
could be estabhshed on a firm and enduring basis. 



X 

The year was drawing to a close. It had been marked, 
as we have seen, by much intercourse between the Pilgrims 
and the Indians, and by substantial progress 
Massasoit jjj amicable relations. There was to be one 
and others other notable meeting. In the midsummer, it 
invited to y^[\i jjg remembered, Winslow and Hopkins, 
visit colony uninvited, visited Massasoit at his official resi- 
dence in Sowams. The visit was attended with 
a good deal of personal discomfort, but the results of it 
were excellent. Would it not promote mutual good feeling 
and confidence, and cement friendship between the two par- 
ties still more closely, to repeat on a large scale, and at the 
seat of the colony, this free social intercourse.'' Evidently 
Bradford and his associates so thought. An invitation 
was extended to the head of the Pokanokets, and such of 
his followers as he might deem it advisable to bring with 
him, to visit Plymouth. Massasoit and ninety of his braves 
accepted the invitation. 

On more than one account the occasion was memorable. 
It was a harvest festival. It was a glad outpouring of 
gratitude to God for the mercies with which 
A harvest he had crowned the year, and the beginning 
festival ^f q^j. Thanksgiving Days — the days whose 

observance at first and for a long time after 
their inauguration, was confined to New England, but 
which has now become a recognized and established custom 
of the nation. Since that awful assault upon their ranks 



I 



THE PILGRIMS 309 

by disease and death back in the early months of their 
settlement, tilings had gone well with the Pilgrims. Good 
health had waited on the survivors of the stricken com- 
pany. From the twenty acres which they planted they 
" had a good increase of Indian corn." Their peas came 
to nothing, but their barley turned out well. Seven 
dwelhng-houses had been erected, and four buildings had 
been put up for use in common by the settlers. There was 
material in hand and preparation made for the rearing of 
other homes. Men, loyal as these men were to him who is 
the Giver of every good and perfect gift, and whose piety 
was marked by devoutness as well as a vigorous righteous- 
ness, could not contemplate this measure of success and 
these tokens of loving care without exclaiming as they did : 
" God be praised." 

This is Winslow's account of the way in which our 
Thanksgiving Days started, and his recital of the form 
of the first proclamation which was issued for 
Winslow's the general observance of a thanksgiving sea- 
account of son, and the preparation which was made 
the first Jn order that the observance might have in it 
Thanks- the proper measure of gladness : " Our bar- 
giving vest being gotten in, our Governor sent four 
men on fowling that so we might, after a more 
special manner, rejoice together, after we had gathered the 
fruits of our labors. They four, in one day, killed as much 
fowl as, with a httle help besides, served the Company 
almost a week." This coming together was made an oc- 
casion, not only for the sincere and earnest recognition 
of the providence which had been over them, but for feast- 
ing and resting and universal sports and general enjoy- 
ment, " at which time, amongst other recreations, we 
exercised our arms." This was one of their " recreations." 
They had " others " — jumping, running, wresthng, shoot- 
ing at marks, and what not; but no doubt Standish had 
an eye to business when in the presence of the Indians, 
who were onlookers at all these proceedings and partici- 
pants in many of them, he put these sturdy, but most 
hkely rather awkward EngHshmen, through the manual 
of arms, and in the various maneuvers of the drill showed 



310 THE PILGRIMS 

with what alertness they could pick off an enemy in a real 
fight. 

But the fact in connection with this thanksgiving fes- 
tival, which has bearing immediately on the point under 
review, was the presence of these Indians — 
The real Massasoit and almost a hundred of his ad- 
advantages herents. These wild men of the forest were 
of this jjQ^- only present to share in the feast and the 

gathering festivities, but they were serviceable in helping 
to furnish supplies. " And they went out, and 
killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation ; 
and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain, and 
others." Three days the visiting and merriment were kept 
up. How good it was for these hard-worked and tired 
Pilgrims to have this respite from toil and this season of 
unbending. We may be sure that the deepest note struck 
in their thought was profound gratitude to God for his 
goodness, but everything was attuned to cheer and glad- 
ness. The Indians were made happy and trustful. A new 
notch was cut in the stick on which were scored the tri- 
umphs of peace. 

Winslow follows up his brief narrative of the coming 
together of the two races in a glad fellowship with a tes- 
timony which is as beautiful as it is simple and tender: 
" We have found the Indians very faithful in their Cove- 
nant of Peace ; very loving and ready to pleasure us. We 
often go with them ; and they come to us. Some of us 
have been fifty miles by land in the country with them. . . . 
Yea, it hath pleased God so to possess the Indians with 
the fear of us, and love unto us, that not only the greatest 
King amongst them — but also all the Princes and peoples 
round about us, have either made suit with us, or been glad 
of any occasion to make peace with us. So that there is 
now great peace amongst the Indians themselves, which 
was not formerly; neither would have been but for us; 
and we, for our parts, walk as peaceably and safely in the 
woods as in the highways in England." 

These words bear the date of the first anniversary of the 
landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. Surely, these 
triumphs over the prejudices of the Indians, and the terms 



THE PILGRIMS 311 

of concord in which they had come to live with them, were 
marvelous achievements, and with other achievements may 
well serve to make the first year of our Forefathers on these 
shores forever memorable. 

XI 

But though all had gone so well in the dealings of the 
Pilgrims with the Indians, and the outlook was so encour- 
aging, there were yet dark days and bloody 
Clouds in doings ahead. The mutual compact which had 
the sky been entered into, and which had been so fruit- 

ful of good results, embraced not all of the 
Indians of the region, but only the Pokanoket Confederacy, 
of which Massasoit was the grand sachem. The Narra- 
gansetts, the traditional enemies of the Pokanokets, with 
Canonicus for their chief, had never come into treaty rela- 
tions with the colonists, and were made all the more 
jealous and dangerous because such relations had been 
established with a rival nation. Some of the outlying 
tribes, such as the tribes which constituted the Massachu- 
setts Confederacy, and some of the tribes further south, 
which had a certain affihation with the Pokanokets, but 
were never very loyal to the Sowams chief, had little love 
for the whites, and were all too ready to Hsten to warlike 
suggestions from the Narragansetts. Hence, while it was 
peace and fellowship with Massasoit and those of his people 
who were true to him, it had to be day-and-night vigilance 
with other chiefs and tribes, who might at any moment fall 
on the new settlers and deal them annihilating blows. 

Grounds for apprehension were very soon in evidence. 
If the first year of residence at Plymouth closed with 
thanksgiving and high festivities, the second 
A quiver year opened with threats and ominous signs 
of arrows Qf peril. Canonicus, the head of the Narra- 
froin Canon- gansetts, sent to the Pilgrims a quiver of ar- 
^^^^ rows fastened with the skin of a rattlesnake. 

It was an open challenge to war, but it brought 
no pallor to the cheeks of the Pilgrims. Bradford filled 
the skin with powder and balls, and sent it back with an 



312 THE PILGRIMS 

accompanying message to the effect that. If the sagamore 
and his forces wished to try conclusions in battle the Ply- 
mouth settlers would be found ready to meet them. The 
strange package, which was returned unopened, and the 
resolute reply, filled Canonicus with alarm, and war for 
the time was averted. The threat, however, was not with- 
out its value to the colonists. The fighting contingent 
was immediately reorganized, and put on a more efficient 
basis, and the settlement was placed in a better posture 
of defense ; and a sharper eye was kept on the movements 
of suspected persons. 

Still, though this attempt to intimidate the Pilgrims had 
miscarried, intrigues and conspiracies were in progress. 
The second year ended without an open outbreak, but near 
the beginning of the third year plots had thickened, and 
the gin which had been set by the fowler was ready for 
its prey. 

XII 

A large share of the guilt, however, lies at the door of 
Weston's colony which had been planted at Wessagusset, 

now Weymouth. Weston himself, as the Pil- 
Weston's gnms had early learned to their sorrow, was a 
colony marplot; and not a few of his followers were 

lazy and disreputable. By their bad treatment 
of the Indians they excited jealousy, aroused antagonism, 
and in many ways added fuel to a fire which a few madcaps 
among the disaffected tribes were trying to kindle into a 
flame. Each member of this ill-starred settlement seems to 
have been a law unto himself ; and there was little care or 
thought about any proper provision for the future. Being 
as reckless in conduct as they were profligate in character, 
when their food supplies ran low, they did not hesitate to 
steal from the Indians, and in other ways to show their 
utter disregard of the rights and feelings of their red 
neighbors. Had it not been for the misdeeds and outrages 
of these Wessagusset colonists, the Pilgrims would not have 
been driven into a conflict which has led morahsts and 
humanitarians to shake their heads in disapproval, or at 



THE PILGRIMS 313 

least to follow the narrative with an interrogation mark. 
Wrongs done to the Indians engendered hate; but in the 
weakened condition of the Weston colony, the Indians began 
to look upon these men with contempt and to insult and mal- 
treat them. At length the Indians decided to destroy the 
colony, and in order that the work of destruction might be 
complete, to wipe out the Plymouth Colony as well. 

Knowledge of the conspiracy came to the Pilgrims 
through Massasoit. This chief had not broken the treaty 
made two years before at Plymouth. But 
Conspiracy through the injury he had suffered in conse- 
revealed by quence of the misrepresentations of Squanto, 
Massasoit ^nd the refusal of the head men of the whites 
to give Squanto up that he might be punished, 
the grand sachem had become cold toward the Pilgrims, 
and of late had had little intercourse with them. He had 
refused, however, to lift his hand against them, though 
overtures having this treachery in view had been made to 
him. A signal kindness shown to him in an hour of need 
by the Plymouth people, changed his feelings and brought 
him back into his old love and loyalty. 

Massasoit was very ill. A deputation was sent to him to 
express sympathy and to render whatever aid might be pos- 
sible. This was in accordance with both Indian 
The Sa- etiquette, which called for special attention in 

chem's ^ase of sickness and the kindly instincts of the 

heart EngKsh. Winslow, as might have been taken 

touched by for granted, headed the deputation. Hobomak 
kindness ^^s the interpreter. The third member of the 
party was " one Master John Hamden," so 
Winslow informs us, " a gentleman of London, who then 
wintered with us, and desired much to see the country." 

Who was this John Hamden? Was he the John Hamp- 
den of immortal " ship-money " fame.? So some have con- 
jectured. If so, Winslow had with him on this mission of 
humanity a young man rising twenty-eight years of age, a 
member of Parliament who had been in his seat more than 
twelve months, and who had succeeded in coming to the 
colony, as also in getting away from it, in a remarkably 
quiet way. The conjecture is not probable. At the same 



314 THE PILGRIMS 

time it is evident this " Master John Hamden " was a man 
of resolution and character, or he neither would have wished 
nor been permitted to share in the hardship and possible 
perils of this delicate mission. 

These humane men were met on the way by conflicting 
rumors. Some said the chief was already dead ; others re- 
ported him still ahve. Winslow and his attendants pushed 
on. Massasoit was not dead ; but he was so near to death 
that his recovery seemed hopeless. By the apphcation of 
proper remedies, and by ministries which would have done 
credit to a trained nurse, and which were just as trying as 
any which the trained nurse has to render, the sick chief 
was restored. 

The kindness moved his heart back into the old affection 
for Bradford and his people. Others had been saying to 
him before the deputation arrived that these white friends 
were no friends, or they would have visited him in his sick- 
ness. These attentions and his recovery through them led 
him to exclaim : " Now I see the English are my friends, 
and love me ; and while I live, I will never forget the kindness 
they have shewed me." In his gratitude he revealed to 
Hobomak the plots which had been formed against the 
colonists. The guide was to tell Winslow what he had 
heard from Massasoit on the way back to Plymouth, and 
the Pilgrims were to be put on their guard. The plot origi- 
nated with the Boston Bay Indians ; but five or six other 
tribes were in it. Further confirmation of this threatened 
massacre came from another sachem. There were many 
straws, too, which showed which way the wind was blowing. 

It could hardly have been otherwise than that disclosures 
so startling should quicken the blood in the veins of the 
Pilgrims. They were never off watch ; but this 
The Pil- ^ag an alarm to set their eyes wide open, 
grims After due dehberation on the state of affairs 

aroused \yy \}^q governor and his immediate advisers, 

the whole constituency of the people was called 
together, since the authorities had no right " to undertake 
war without the consent of the body of the Company ; " and 
the situation was explained to them. One can feel the solemn 
hush of the occasion, and realize in some measure how seri- 
ous the outlook seemed to all the members of that little 



THE PILGRIMS 315 

assembly. They were under the shadow of a bloody strug- 
gle. What was to be the issue.? Were they, one and all, 
to be the victims of a treacherous and wily foe ? 

Winslow shall tell us how the matter stood in the common 
thought : " The business was no less troublesome than grie- 
vous ; and the more, because it is so ordinary, in these 
times, for men to measure things by the events thereof ; but 
especially for that we knew no means to deliver our country- 
men and preserve ourselves, than by returning their mali- 
cious and cruel purposes upon their own heads ; and 
causing them to fall into the same pit they had digged 
for others — though it much grieved us to shed the blood 
of those, whose good we ever intended and aimed at as a 
principle in all our proceedings." 

The result of the conference was the appointment of a 
conmiittee consisting of Bradford, Allerton, and Standish, 

with power to act. The committee came to the 
Blood must conclusion that blood must be drawn. The 
be shed leaders in this conspiracy must be sought out 

and put to death. This is what Massasoit 
said they ought to do : " As we respected the lives of our 
countrymen, and our own after-safety, he advised us to kill 
the men of Massachusetts, who were the authors of this 
intended mischief." Hobomak agreed with Massasoit, and 
" used many arguments himself to move us thereto," True, 
this was Indian counsel and not Christian ; but it had 
its basis and warrant in the interest of self-preservation 
which is common to all men, whether pagan or Christian, 
savage or civilized. 

Following up this conclusion the brave captain chose 
eight men, and when all were in readiness, started for the 

Weymouth settlement. He took no more than 
The sharp eight men, for fear that a larger force would 
and deadly excite suspicion ; since it was a part of his 
conflict strategy to appear on coming to them to be on 

one of his usual trading expeditions. He took 
no less than eight men for fear that a smaller number 
would not be able to cope with the foe he was to meet. 
Having reached the settlement, and assured himself, as he 
was charged to do, by additional evidence that the facts 
were as they had been represented, and warned the settlers 



316 THE PILGRIMS 

of the Impending danger, and gathered the stray members 
into places of safety, and having waited for what appeared 
to be the best chance for striking a telKng blow, he gave 
the word, and he and his little band, only three or four of 
the eight he had brought with him, or just man for man, 
so chivalrous was he against the foe with which he was to 
grapple, fell upon the arch conspirators and smote them 
unto death. Wituwamat, " a notable insulting villian ; one 
who had formerly imbrued his hands in the blood of the 
English and French and had often boasted of his own 
valor; and derided their weakness, especially because, as 
he said they died crying, making sour faces more like 
children than men," and Pecksuot who bragged of his 
prowess and taunted Standish with being " a great Cap- 
tain," but only " a little man," and with whom in this last 
deadly encounter the " little man " had measured strength, 
were stretched lifeless at the feet of their assailants. One 
other of the Indians was slain ; " and a youth of some eigh- 
teen years of age, which was brother to Wituwamat and, 
villian-hke, trode in his steps," was captured and hung. 
Another division of the force killed two men. The captain 
and those with him despatched another man. By this time, 
the remaining braves took alarm and escaped. But seven 
of them — the two ringleaders among the seven, had paid 
the penalty of their treachery and been put where they could 
enter into no more intrigues and make no more murder- 
ous attacks. Standish and his heroic squad returned in 
triumph. As ordered to do, the intrepid leaders brought 
back the head of Wituwamat ; and in accordance with Eng- 
lish custom and the spirit of the age, it was set up as a 
gruesome warning to all conspirators. 

The falUng upon the Indians and slaughtering them was 
a sad business. It was this sanguine episode in the experi- 
ence of the Pilgrims which led Robinson from 
A sad but across the seas at Leyden to send over the wish 
justifiable that the Pilgrims might have converted some of 
act the Indians before killing any of them. The 

sentiment was eminently creditable to his heart ; 
but the criticism implied in it had no justification in fact. 
It is of course possible that God might have brought de- 



THE PILGRIMS 317 

liverance from threatened perils in some other way. If 
there was ever a body of men who put an intelligent trust 
in God, it was these Pilgrims. But while they trusted they 
kept their powder dry ; and they had no idea that God 
would help those who refused to help themselves. 

Their lives and the lives of their wives and children were 
in peril. The future of their enterprise hung in the balance. 
There was a way to protect themselves and to establish 
their colony in security. They had men in their ranks, who, 
in skill and experience and courage, were equal to the task, 
and muskets and powder and ball with which to equip them. 
Not to have done exactly what they did would have been 
a reckless and cowardly neglect of duty. These dauntless 
dehverers became a providence of God to the Weymouth 
people and saved them. 

There were no Englishmen outside of themselves who 
knew their sore straits, and no fellow colonists to come to 
their rescue. There was but one arm to strike for them, and 
that was their own. They struck and God gave the blow 
the right direction and energy to accomplish its purpose. 

The drastic deaUng brought to an end troubles and fears 
of this sort. The discipline was severe, but it was salutary. 
There were occasional alarms, and now and 
The drastic then rather trying situations to be met ; but no 
treatment serious conflicts for many years. Not one of 
salutary ^he original Pilgrim band, man, woman, or 

child lost his hfe at the hands of the Indians. 

There remained yet one decisive encounter to be fought 
out between red man and white, savagery and civiHzation, 
the old order of stagnation and death and the new order of 
progress and life ; but this was to be deferred till more than 
a haJf century after the landing of the Pilgrims, when the 
Plymouth colony had become merged in a confederacy of 
colonies, and the conflict was one which involved all the 
leading settlements of New England. For these reasons, 
that the deadly encounter came much later in the hfe of the 
colony, that it was fought out under circumstances alto- 
gether diff'erent from those in which the preceding con- 
tests had been carried on, and that it was a unique event in 
New England history, it has seemed better to defer the 



318 THE PILGRIMS 

account of it till more of the story of the Pilgrims has been 
told, and then to gather the facts relating to it, or such of 
them as it seems advisable to relate, into a chapter by itself. 

xm 

In reviewing the attitude of the Pilgrims toward the 
Indians, and taking all the facts into careful consideration, 

the impression becomes clear and positive that 
The Pil- Qjj ^}|g whole the men of Plymouth were not 
grims just only just, but remarkably kind to the native 
and kind inhabitants of the land. It has been perti- 
to the nently said that " when a superior and an in- 

Indians ferior race coinhabits, some individual wrongs 

are inevitable." All the more might such a 
result be expected when a civilized and a savage people 
dwell in close proximity. Nevertheless, in this instance the 
forbearance of the stronger towards the weaker was re- 
markable. The disposition, too, of the stronger to be of 
service to the weaker is deserving of all praise. 

It is not to be denied, however, that in the course of the 
years there were one or two breaks in this uniformity of 

fair and kindly dealing. 
A few ex- ^^ have seen that in one instance the Pil- 
ceptions to grims took corn from the Indians, without 
strict waiting to consult the owners, and appropri- 

justice ated it to their own use. This was when they 

were new to the country, and were ignorant of 
the ways of the red men. It was in anticipation of needs 
which would soon be pressing, and which they saw no other 
way to meet. It was also done with the full intention of 
making ample payment on the first opportunity. This they 
did. All the same the act was wrong. 

In another instance, more than fifty years later, the civil 
authorities at Plymouth violated the pledge made by the 
mihtary authorities in the field, so Baylies affirms, and sold 
into slavery about a hundred and sixty Indians, who were 
induced to surrender as prisoners of war on the distinct 
understanding that no harm was to come to them in conse- 
quence. They were what were called the Dartmouth In- 



THE PILGRIMS 319 

dians. They lived about Dartmouth. Though the town 
was destroyed, these particular Indians had no hand in it. 
It was cruel and unjust to the last degree to treat them in 
this way. Against treachery so rank, Eels, the captain of 
the company who brought about the surrender, Church, 
and others made vehement protest. The protest was in 
vain. It is true it was the custom everywhere in those 
days to sell soldiers taken in war into slavery ; but there 
was no excuse for violating a word of honor. The act 
did a double mischief. It turned the wavering Indians to 
the wrong side of the bloody contest, and it left an in- 
delible stain on the fair page of Pilgrim history. 

After all, the wonder is that there was so little of this 
perversion of superior skill and power to selfish ends. In a 
career which covers more than seventy years, the charges 
of wrong-doing against the Indians by the Pilgrims nar- 
rows down to the two instances just mentioned. There were 
individual cases of bad treatment ; but as a body the Pil- 
grims were marvelously patient with their savage neighbors 
and tenderly considerate of their rights and interests. 

Before using lands which were claimed by the Indians, 
the Pilgrims were careful to purchase them. There were no 
owners to the land immediately occupied by the 
Bought Pilgrims. The death of the Patuxets by the 

their lands ravages of the plague had extinguished titles, 
of them 3y^ jjj q\i instances where there were lands 
which were desired by the colonists and owned 
by the Indians, the ownership was respected. Speaking of 
the acknowledgment of right to occupy the territory made 
to them by Massasoit, Cushman, in his "Lawfulness of Plan- 
tations," says : " Neither hath this been accomplished by 
threats and blows, or shaking of sword and sound of trum- 
pet. For as our faculty that way is small, so our warring 
with them is after another manner, namely, by friendly 
usage, love, peace, honest and just carriages, good counsel, 
etc. ; that so we and they may not only live in peace in the 
land, and they yield subjection to an earthly Prince; but 
that as voluntaries they may be persuaded at length to 
embrace the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, and rest in peace 
with him forever." This statement was made so early in 



320 THE PILGRIMS 

the career of the Pilgrims on these shores that it covers only 
a short period of their history. Still it is true of them all 
the way through. The spirit and policy here set forth 
characterized the land-dealings of the Pilgrims with the 
natives from first to last. Statements made by Hoar, 
Palfrey, Hall, and others, and quoted at the head of this 
chapter, abundantly justify this claim. 

Recall the testimony of Governor Josiah Winslow, son of 
Governor Edward Winslow, made at the time of the war with 
Philip, to the effect that, in all of their more than fifty years 
of deahng with them, the Plymouth settlers did not own a 
foot of land, save that, of course, which had been abandoned 
and which he did not have in mind when speaking, which 
they had not obtained by honest purchase from the Indians. 

The commissioners sent out by Charles II to examine 
into the conditions and doings of the colonies, reported 
that but one complaint was made to them at Plymouth. 
This was that " the Governor would not let a man enjoy 
a farm of four miles square which he had bought of an 
Indian." Indeed, a law was passed in restraint of sharp 
transactions of this sort with the natives. Under this law 
no member of the colony was permitted either to buy or 
gratuitously receive any land from the Indians without 
submitting the terms of the trade to the court. 

As has been said, after the death of Philip, lands which 
he had claimed and occupied were confiscated and turned 
over to the uses of the colony which had suffered so severely 
by the unprovoked uprising. That was justifiable. But 
up to this time all these land transactions between the two 
races were marked with the spirit of equity, and it was 
sell and buy on the basis of the " square deal " which char- 
acterizes all other honest sellers and buyers. 

The same temper of honesty and kindness marked the 
Pilgrims in their other relations to the Indians. These 
English settlers taught the Indians the truths 
Taught of i\^Q gospel. Many of them were brought 

and aided into the faith and had new and higher views 
tliem kindled in their souls. 

Rev. Samuel Treat, a son of Governor Treat 
of Connecticut, became the settled pastor of the church 



THE PILGRIMS 321 

at Eastham in 1672. Inside of fifteen years the Chris- 
tian Indians within his parish numbered not less than 
five hundred. The children who are not included in this 
estimate, and who are supposed to have been under Chris- 
tian influences, were two or three times this number. The 
death of this devoted minister occurred in March, 1717. 
His funeral was impressive. There had been a tremendous 
snow-storm. Goodwin thus describes the scene : " The 
wind so eddied around the parsonage that it was left, 
untouched by snow, in the basin of an enormous circular 
drift. Under this barrier a tunnel was excavated for the 
funeral train. The Indian converts assisted in bearing the 
body, and the toilsome way required many relays. It was 
a sublime sight, as, down that crystal archway and on 
through the outlying drifts, their venerable pastor was 
borne to his grave by the united hands of his white and red 
disciples — the returning laborer surrounded by the liv- 
ing sheaves. No titled potentate ever had burial more 
truly royal." Robert Treat Paine was a grandson of this 
consecrated and heroic friend of the Indians. 

The Pilgrims ministered to the Indians in sickness. 
They arbitrated their quarrels, and lessened jealousies and 
frictions between the tribes. They saw that red men who 
had been employed by white men to do any kind of work 
were properly remunerated for their services. Improper 
advantages were not to be taken of them in trade. When 
oppressed by cold or threatened with starvation, and they 
made appeals for succor, these untutored savages were 
never turned unaided from the doors of their civilized 
neighbors. When discipline was necessary the Pilgrims 
knew how to administer it, whether it was hanging one of 
their own number who had been guilty of murder, or smit- 
ing the leaders of a cruel conspiracy to the death. But 
justice and kindness were the watchwords which guided 
them and characterized the Pilgrims in their dealings with 
the Indians. The Indian was helped in every way in which 
he could be helped. Palfrey says : " The shield of law was 
held over him with assiduous solicitude. Whoever could 
be proved to have wronged him was made to feel that he 
had a watchful guardian, severe in measures of redress. 

21 



322 THE PILGRIMS 

The hurtful engagements into which he was most liable to 
be entrapped, this law declared to be null from the begin- 
ning, . . . and special opportunities for humane and tender 
treatment of him were generously used." 

It was a glorious record — that which was made by the 
Pilgrims in their dealings with the Indians. There were 
some mistakes and shortcomings ; but, had they been per- 
mitted to live their lives over again, there were few trans- 
actions in the whole three-quarters of a century which could 
have been much improved. 



XV 

FOSTERING THE CHURCH 



Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt ; Thou didst drive out the nations 
and plantedst it. Thou preparedst room before it, and it took deep root 
and filled the land. — From The Eightieth Psalm. 

The men and women who are positive in the character of their beliefs 
are the men and women who are known to be constructive forces in the 
regenerative agencies of the world. — W. H. W. Boyle. 

The practical aim or ideal of our fathers, in their migration to the new 
world, was religion. This was the star of the East that guided them hither. 

Horace Bushnell. 

I seem to see in the mature designs of Him, . . . who moves in his own 
appointed times, and selects and prepares his own instruments, the re-enact- 
ment of the first scenes of the Christian dispensation, in the estabhshment of 
the Christian faith on this unpeopled continent . . . and hail the Pilgrim 
Fathers as the bearers of a new commission, than which there has been no 
greater since the time of the Apostles. — William M. Evabts. 

The two distinct messages of Congregationalism originally were that the 
Church of Christ ought to be composed only of persons spiritually renewed 
and living in obedience to Him ; and that such persons united in one local 
church should have liberty to worship God in their own manner, according 
to the dictates of their own conscience, and to manage their own ecclesi- 
astical affairs. — The Congregationalist. 

We do not honor the Pilgrims simply as the Fathers of New England, 
but because they were the depositories and best representatives then on the 
earth of the one central principle on which the hopes of the race rest . . . 
the vital union of man with God in moral conformity to Him, and so in pre- 
paration for an eternal life. — Mark Hopkins. 



XV 

FOSTERING THE CHURCH 

THE church of which the Pilgrims were members was 
already an organized institution when they reached 
the New World. Back at Scrooby, it will be remem- 
bered, the httle company of kindred spirits who were 
shocked by the empty formahty and disgraceful worldh- 
ness into which the church had drifted, and whose hearts 
had been " touched by the Lord with heavenly zeal for the 
truth," and who were ready to " shake off the yoke of anti- 
Christian bondage" which had been placed upon their 
necks, had joined themselves by solemn covenant " into a 
Church estate in the fellowship of the Gospel, to walk in 
all its ways, made known, or to be made known unto them, 
according to their best endeavors, whatever it shall cost 
them." In England, while the Pilgrims still remained 
there, at Amsterdam, at Leyden, and in their new and 
permanent home at Plymouth, this was their bond of 
union. It was a sacred and all-sufficient bond. How well 
the terms and imphcations of it were met, especially by the 
original parties to it, is one of the shining facts of history. 
It was no idle claim that "the true piety, the humble 
zeal, and fervent love of this people, while they lived to- 
gether, towards God and His ways, and the single-hearted- 
ness and sincere affection one towards another," brought 
them as near realizing " the primitive pattern of the first 
Churches " as anything which has been seen in these later 
centuries. It was along the hues and in the spirit of this 
covenant that the rehgious life of the Pilgrims was to be 
developed. 



326 THE PILGRIMS 



In the discussion of the church question at Leyden, two 
things were definitely settled. It was settled, " by mutual 

consent and covenant, that those who went 
The two should be an absolute Church by themselves, 
branches ^^g ^^11 as those who stayed." It was also 
°°® settled that, as the number who were to remain 

was larger than the number who were to go, 
Pastor Robinson should abide with the majority, while 
Elder Brewster should join the emigrating section. They 
reached the first of these conclusions on the ground that 
*' in such a dangerous voyage, and a removal to such a 
distance, it might come to pass, for the body of them, 
never to meet again in this world — yet with this pro- 
viso, that as any of the rest came over to them, or any of 
the others returned upon occasion, they should be reported 
as members without any further dismission or testimonial." 
The second conclusion was both natural and just. Still, 
one cannot help pondering in his own mind what would 
have been the effect upon the colony, and especially upon 
the religious life of the colony, had the list of passengers, 
which the Maijflower bore across the Atlantic, contained the 
illustrious name of John Robinson. 



n 

The first meeting-house of the Pilgrims was a fort. 
This fort was built in the trying summer of 1622. The 
air was thick with rumors of attacks by the 
The first Indians. Tidings had reached the colony of 
meeting- ^j^g dreadful massacre which had already 
house taken place in Virginia. It seemed impera- 

tive that a strong defense should be provided. 
But while safety was the primary object in the erection 
of this building it was made to do duty for worship. The 
picture is one familiar to the imagination of the way in 
which these stern but devout souls went up to the place of 



THE PILGRIMS 327 

prayer. Called together by beat of drum, marching fully 
equipped and in orderly ranks, guarded through the long 
exercises by watchful sentinels, and at the conclusion of 
the services going back to their homes with slow step and 
solemn mien, but with hearts encouraged and strengthened 
by communion with Him whom they sought to acknoy/1- 
edge in all their ways, and by the words of promise which 
had fallen on their ears from the Scriptures, and by the 
illuminating remarks of their good elder, they worshiped 
in spirit and in truth, and the rewards of such worship 
were bestowed upon them in abundant measure. 



ni 

For almost a decade, or from the hour when Robinson 
made his prayer of parting and farewell at Delfshaven, to 

the hour of the settlement of an ordained 
Brewster's minister at Plymouth, Brewster was the spir- 
xninistry Jtual guide of the Httle flock in the wilderness. 

This is why his name appears only in the most 
important of the business transactions of the colony, and 
why, though his counsel was always in demand and always 
at the service of the chosen authorities, he was never ad- 
vanced to civic leadership. In natural ability, in training, 
and above all, in wide and varied experience in affairs, he 
was one of the most competent men of the company to stand 
at the head in times of financial pressure, and when the skies 
of the future were black with clouds. He was, also, not only 
one of the best, but the best one to have charge of the relig- 
ious interests of the Pilgrims. He had the age, the knowl- 
edge, the furnishing of books, the spiritual insight, the 
devout temper, the loving heart, the irreproachable charac- 
ter, the confidence and affection of the people, and — a 
matter of no small consequence — the advantage of long 
and close intimacy with the great Pastor who had been left 
behind, to qualify him above all others for this service in the 
things of God and the soul. 

Brewster was never set apart to the ministry by the 
laying on of hands, and he remained an elder to the end. 



328 THE PILGRIMS 

Not having been ordained, he refused to administer the 
sacraments. Evidently he was urged to do this, and ques- 
tioned in his own mind whether he might not 
Never (Jq ft, and then justify the action by the circum- 

ordained stances in which the Httle church was placed. 
When, as at Leyden, the church had a regular 
pastor, they had had the Lord's Supper every Sunday. 
Baptism, too, was administered as often as there was oc- 
casion. It is no wonder there was a craving for these 
ordinances. The elder turned to the wise and beloved 
man of God who was back in Holland. Robinson frankly 
gave his judgment against administering the sacraments 
by an unordained man. Brewster acquiesced ; and the Httle 
church had to be content with such forms and measures of 
ministry as were deemed competent to elders. He taught 
and exhorted, he labored in word and doctrine, and he 
gave full proof of his ministry ; but he refused to go 
beyond these offices and distribute the elements at the 
communion table, or to apply water in baptism. It is 
doubtful if some of our modern laymen, who, without 
much fitness for the office, or much persuasion to enter it, 
make bold to teach in sacred things, would have shown 
themselves either so modest or so scrupulous. It is not 
to be doubted that the church might have authorized their 
thoroughly competent elder to administer the sacraments. 
But the Pilgrims were a people on whom the eyes of the 
world looked with anything but sympathy, and wisdom 
toward those who were without required that they walk 
with the utmost circumspection. This they did in faith 
and patience for ten long years. 

Splendid testimonies, borne by his associates, to the value 
of Brewster's ministrations are on record. " He taught 
twice every Sabbath." Neither the pressure 
Splendid of business nor home delights and duties; 
testimo- neither weariness of body caused by hard 

nies to daily toil nor exhaustion of time and strength 

Brewster's jjj other forms of religious activity, had led 
ministry these simple souls to think that they might 
wisely give up their second service. They 
had no regularly qualified minister, but they maintained 



THE PILGRIMS 329 

their two services. Bradford sajs of the teaching which 
the good elder gave them " twice every Sabbath " that it 
was both powerful and profitable, and that it was like- 
wise *' to the great contentment of the hearers and their 
comfortable edification." " In prayer, both public and 
private, he was singularly gifted in laying open the heart 
and conscience before God, in the humble confession of 
sin," and in " begging the mercies of God in Christ for 
pardon." 

IV 

The Bible used in the homes and in the pulpit was the 
Geneva Bible, though the King James Version was most 

likely in the hands of some of the colonists ; 
The Bible for both versions, so far as expense was con- 
used cerned, were within reach of the people. But 

the Geneva Bible, in view of its origin and 
associations, would appeal to the Pilgrims with a peculiar 
force. For it was a translation of the Holy Scriptures 
into EngHsh which was made by the able, devout, and con- 
scientious Christian scholars who had been driven from 
their native land to Geneva during the merciless reign of 
" Bloody Mary." When the Bible was read in pubhc ser- 
vice the reading was accompanied with running comments. 
To read the Scriptures without expounding them was re- 
garded as " dumb reading." The hymn book in the hands 
of the Pilgrims was Ainsworth's Psalms. It is not likely 
that the words were obscured by artistic singing. 



In the spring of 1624, the long cherished desire of the 
church for a resident pastor seemed about to be reaUzed. 

The same ship which brought letters from 
A minister Robinson to Bradford and Brewster — the 
in prospect i^g^ gyer received from him by any member 

of the colony, and in one of which he declared 
the improbability, owing to conspiracies against him 



330 THE PILGRIMS 

among the Adventurers, of his ever coming to them — ■ 
brought also Rev. John Lyford. Reading between the hncs 
in a paragraph about him in an epistle sent by Cush- 
man, it is easy to see that he and Winslow, who was then 
in England, were not oversanguine in their estimates of 
his worth, or how he would turn out. Their minds would 
have been filled with something more positive than mis- 
givings had they known the man's history and character. 
*' The preacher we have sent is, we hope, an honest, plain 
man, though none of the most earnest and rare. About 
choosing him into office use your own Hberty and dis- 
cretion ; he knows he is no officer amongst you, though 
perhaps custom and universality may make him forget 
himself. Mr. Winslow and myself gave way to his going, 
to give content to some here ; and we see no hurt in it, but 
only his great charge of children." 

The latent distrust of this communication was justified 
a hundredfold. The man proved to be an unmitigated 

rascal. His record was unsavory. His du- 
Lyford a plicity knew no bounds. His hypocrisy was 
bad man monumental. He could he and repent, and 

then lie and repent again, with all the facility 
with which a skilled artillerist can load and fire a gathng 
gun. He was humble on occasion, but his humility was of 
the obtrusive, sickening sort. Bradford's account of his 
deferential attitude towards the members of the colony, 
— an account written many years after the exposure of 
the fellow's contemptible meanness and duplicity — shows 
what a cringing, fawning, slimy creature he was. " When 
this man first came ashore, he saluted them with that rev- 
erence and humility as is seldom to be seen, and indeed 
made them ashamed, he so bowed and cringed unto them, 
and would have kissed their hands, if they would have 
suffered him ; yea, he wept and shed tears, blessing God 
that had brought him to see their faces ; and admiring 
the things they had done in their wants, and so forth, as 
if he had been made all of love, and the humblest person 
in the world." He was allowed to preach. At his own 
request he was received into the church. He got no further. 
For very soon he became a mischief-maker. 



THE PILGRIMS 331 

Lyford found a kindred spirit in John Oldam. This 
Oldam was one of those who had come to Plymouth, not 
as a member of the colony, but on his own 
John individual account. " He had been a chief 

Oldam stickler in the former faction among the par- 

ticulars, and an intelligencer to those in Eng- 
land." But, as the ship which brought Lyford also brought 
supplies, the outlook was changed. Oldam was forward 
with confessions of his evil ways, with regrets for the 
harm he had done, and with profuse promises of amend- 
ment and cooperation in the future. He was taken at his 
word and even invited into the counsels of the colony. 
He was the kind of leopard, however, that does not change 
his spots. He was without a drop of honest blood in his 
veins. He may have had twinges of conscience, and a 
momentary purpose to do better ; but, if so, he soon lapsed 
back and was up to his elbows in his old tricks. There 
was no soundness in him. 

VI 

It was not long before these two precious scamps had 
entered into a dehberate plot to revolutionize the little 

independent church and overturn the little 
Conspiracy republican state, and wreck the whole under- 
of Lyford taking of the Pilgrims. 
and Oldam This, by the way, is the open secret of the 

presence of Lyford in the colony. It will be 
recalled that in the last letters written by Robinson to his 
friends at Plymouth, intimation was given of an intention 
on the part of some of the Adventurers to prevent his going 
to America. It will be recalled, too, that Cushman in his 
letter spoke of the pressure brought to bear on him and 
Winslow to permit the going over of Lyford. The scheme 
was to set up an episcopacy in the church and check the 
tendency to democracy in the state. Precisely this is 
what the two conspirators attempted. By misrepresenta- 
tion, by bald lying, by audacious effrontery, by stirring 
up the spirit of faction, by treachery amounting to 
treason, they sought to accomplish their unholy ends. 



332 THE PILGRIMS 

But it takes a very shrewd man to be as shrewd in vil- 
lainy as an honest man can be in honesty. What seem 
to be wolves in sheep's clothing often turn out to be only 
stupid asses. The leaders of this sorely tried colony were 
not the kind of " elect " who were easily deceived. The 
cunning and malicious schemes of these two men were 
speedily discovered. In the exercise of his authority and 
the discharge of his duty as a magistrate, Bradford went 
aboard the ship which was to carry the mail to England, 
intercepted and opened the letters — about twenty of them 
— which Lyford had written to his fellow conspirators 
at home, took copies of some and retained the originals of 
others, and at the proper psychological moment, when 
things had " ripened," and the men had begun to put their 
plot in execution, confronted them in open meeting with 
the evidence of their duplicity and treachery. Few of 
Oldam's letters were found, for he was a bad " scribe " — 
" yet he was as deep in the mischief as the other." For 
" amongst the rest they found a letter of one of their 
confederates in which was written that Mr. Oldam and 
Mr. Lyford intended a reformation in Church and Com- 
monwealth," and that, as soon as practicable after 
the ship had sailed, they were to launch their project. 
This they did. This is what Bradford meant by letting 
things " ripen." But the schemers were detected, and 
their schemes came to naught. The harm they would have 
done was averted; and, in due time, to the satisfaction of 
all save themselves, the plotters were shown the open door 
to other parts of the land. In view of the aggravating 
features of the case, the forbearance of the Pilgrims was 
wonderful. For, while Oldam was compelled by sentence 
of the court to go at once, his wife and family were per- 
mitted to remain all winter, or until he could make proper 
provision for them ; and Lyford was allowed to stay in 
the place for six months. The seeds of mischief, however, 
which the two men sowed, though they sprouted, never 
yielded the full crop of evil which the sowers anticipated. 

Lyford preached to a few who hovered around the 
colony, and who had been disaffected towards it by his in- 
sinuations and opposition ; and his preaching met with 



THE PILGRIMS 333 

little response. The members of the church, as has been 
said, were eager for an ordained minister — a minister 
who could discharge all the duties of the office; but they 
were spared the humiliation and disaster of seeing their 
pastorate filled by an ordained renegade. So the clean 
and faithful Brewster, who " would never be persuaded 
to take higher office upon him " than that of elder, had 
to keep steadily on his way " in dispensing the Word of 
God " to the httle flock. 

An impressive illustration of the esteem in which Elder 
Brewster was held, and of the blessing which followed his 
endeavors to win men to the faith, is found in 
Further d^q renewal of rehgious interest and the acces- 

appreci- sions to membership in the church, right after 

ation of these perplexing and disheartening experi- 
Brewster ences with Lyford. " Many who before stood 
something off from the Church — now tend- 
ered themselves to the Church and joined it." " And so 
these troubles produced a quite contrary effect in sundry 
here than these adversaries hoped for; which was looked 
at as a great work of God, to draw on men by unlikely 
means." 

Following this experience with Lyford, there was another 
disappointment in store for the Pilgrim church. Allerton, 
acting on his own responsibility, when he re- 
Rogers turned from one of his business trips to London, 
brought in 1628, brought back with him a young min- 
°"'"®' ister by the name of Rogers. Little is known, 
and Uttle needs to be known of him. It was at 
once discovered, so Bradford says, " upon some trial, that 
he was crazed in his brain." This ended the experiment 
with this new candidate for their pulpit ; and, as soon as 
they might, the Pilgrims sent the unfortunate man back 
to his native land. 

Allerton was blamed, as no doubt he should have been, 
for involving the colony in the expense of bringing this 
man over, and shipping him back again. Why he did it has 
been thought a mystery. It hardly needs to have been. 
Four years, or a little more it may be, before this, Allerton 
had married Fear, a daughter of Brewster. He was nat- 



334 THE PILGRIMS 

urally interested in the welfare and comfort of the good 
elder. Brewster wished very much to have a regularly 
ordained minister come to his rehef . Only such a minister, 
in his own estimation and the estimation of Robinson, could 
properly administer the ordinances. The son-in-law knew 
this ; coming across a young man who had been ordained, 
and who was foot loose, and not stopping to make the 
necessary inquiries about him, he took it upon himself to 
bring him over. The intent was kindly, but disaster fol- 
lowed. The collapse of the young minister was sad and 
utter. 

But why call this man " pastor " ? He was no more pas- 
tor of the church at Plymouth than a man would be pastor 
of the Union Park Church, in Chicago, or the Old South 
Church, in Boston, who at a time when the pulpit might 
chance to be vacant, should be brought forward and intro- 
duced by some leading member, and given a trial for a 
single Sunday, and then sent on his way again because 
found unsuited to the place. Lyford was never " pastor " 
of the church. Neither was Rogers ever " pastor " of the 
church. Yet, lying right here before me, is a statement 
from the pen of one of our accepted writers on the history 
of these old colonial days in which it is affirmed that 
"Lyford, their first pastor, was 'deposed for immorality; 
Rogers, their second, ceased to serve because ' crazed in 
the brain.' " It is time that misrepresentations hke these, 
which are sometimes caught up and repeated by men of 
wide intelligence and national reputation, should cease; 
and that our writers and speakers should stop calling such 
a scoundrel as Lyford, and such an unfortunate wreck as 
Rogers, " first pastor *' and " second pastor " of the Pil- 
grim church. 

In the midsummer of 1629, by a singular combina- 
tion of circumstances. Rev. Ralph Smith, a regularly or- 
dained minister, and a man of character, found 
Bev. Balph j^jg ^^y to Plymouth. He had a wife and chil- 
Smith dren. He seems to have been a member of the 

Massachusetts Bay Colony. At the time of 
his appearance on the scene he was living with a little 
struggling group of settlers at Nantasket. Through the 



THE PILGRIMS 335 

happy chance of a boat from Plymouth landing at Nan- 
tasket, he found his way to the Pilgrims. The men who 
brought him " had no order for any such thing ; " but, " see- 
ing him to be a grave man," and learning that " he had 
been a minister," they presumed to take him aboard their 
little craft and bring him to the colony. He received a 
kindly welcome ; was housed amongst them ; and very soon 
began to " exercise his gifts " in their rude pulpit. The 
result was that he was chosen to be the minister of the 
church. 

Smith was the first regularly ordained and settled pas- 
tor of the first church at Plymouth. He was evidently a 
good man. Inasmuch as he was authorized by 
Smith, the ordination in due form to administer the sacra- 
^^^* ments, this people had a long deferred oppor- 

pastor tunity to sit once more at the communion 

table, and to have their children baptized. 
This, in their estimation, was a great and precious privi- 
lege; and one cannot help thinking of the well-nigh 
rapturous joy with which these plain men and women in 
the wilderness, for the first time after so many years, 
pressed the symbols of the dying love of our Lord to their 
lips. 

The pastorate of Smith lasted only a httle more than 
six years. For though he was a good man, he was 
neither very able nor very popular. At 
Pastorate i\^q conclusion of his account of things in 
not long iQQQ^ Bradford says : " This year Mr. Smith 
laid down his place of ministry, partly by 
his own willingness, as thinking It too heavy a bur- 
den ; and partly at the desire and by the persuasion of 
others." 

Shortly after the close of his pastorate. Smith had an 
experience which in part, it may be, justifies the statement 
just made that he was not a man of much ability. In 1636, 
the somewhat erratic and troublesome Samuel Gorton came 
with his wife from London by way of Salem to Plymouth. 
The two boarded at Smith's. Gorton evidently took his 
turn in leading the family devotions. It was not long be- 
fore the ex-pastor's wife was ready to say, and perhaps a 



336 THE PILGRIMS 

bit too forward to say, that she thought the prayers of 
Gorton were better than those of her husband. The remark 
was neither to edification nor harmony. Smith could not 
stand a comparison so humihating, and he straightway 
ordered the gifted brother out of the house. The man of 
superior unction in prayer refused to go; and it was not 
until the aggrieved minister took the matter into court that 
Gorton quit. 



VIII 

One of the most interesting facts for which Smith's min- 
istry in the Old Colony is to be remembered is that Roger 

Williams was associated with him for a time 
Boger jj^ }^jg work. Williams came to Massachusetts 

Williams in the early months of 1631. Soon after land- 
at Ply- ing at the Bay he was asked to supply the pul- 

mouth -pii Qf ^\^Q Boston church during the absence 

in England of its pastor, Rev. John Wilson. 
He made conditions so exacting and illiberal towards the 
Church of England that the members of the Boston church 
were unwilling, as they ought to have been, to accede 
to them, and Williams left and went to Salem. Here he 
precipitated another controversy over the charter under 
which the colony was settled. The people became alarmed 
for the existence of their government. Williams reheved 
the situation once more by withdrawing from Salem and 
going to Plymouth. Here he spent nearly two years. He 
held extreme opinions on three points ; the need of abso- 
lute separation from the Church of England, the renunci- 
ation of the authority of magistrates in church matters, 
and baptism by immersion as the only Scriptural mode of 
administering the rite. His opinions were shared only by 
a few ; and he asked for letters back to the Salem church. 
Discussion arose. Feelings were excited. At length the 
church followed the advice of Elder Brewster, and the dis- 
mission sought was granted. The ground of the elder's 
advice was that if Williams remained with them he would 
" cause divisions." 



THE PILGRIMS 337 

Bradford fully appreciated the many excellent qualities 
in Williams. He called him " a man godly and zealous, 

having many precious parts, but very unset- 
Bradford's tied in judgment." " His teaching " was " well 
opinion of approved, for the benefit whereof I still bless 
Williams God." The simple fact is that it took Roger 

Williams a good while to get his bearings. 
The Pilgrims were a great deal more tolerant towards him 
than he was towards them. While he was still struggling 
with the alphabet of toleration, these simple people at 
Plymouth appear to have been well schooled in the subject. 
It is not improbable that he got his first lesson in toleration 
at the feet of the Pilgrims. At any rate, it is well that the 
world has consented to forget what he stood for at the 
outset of his career, and to remember only what he came 
to represent later in his life. 



IX 

The church had the usual experience of churches in 
general in securing a successor to Mr. Smith. Winslow 
was abroad on business, and though the pulpit 
Seeking a ^^g ^ot actually vacant when he left, coming 
successor events cast their shadows before, and he was 
to Smith charged with the duty of looking up a new 
minister. He found a man. Glover by name, 
whom he took to be a suitable person for the Plymouth 
church. Glover consented to come ; but, according to the 
account given by Bradford, " when he was prepared for 
the voyage, he fell sick of a fever and died." This Glover 
must not be confounded with the other Glover, whose name 
is associated with the setting up of the first printing-press 
in America, and who, sailing with his wife for Boston in 
1638, died at sea. 

Another promising candidate was found in Mr. John 
Norton. He hstened to the overtures made to him, and was 
willing to come; but he would not agree to accept a call 
until he had arrived and looked the situation over. He 
came and preached for a while, and soon won the appro- 

22 



838 THE PILGRIMS 

batlon of the people. Meantime he received an invitation 
to go to Ipswich, " where," as Bradford says in a not alto- 
gether disguised tone of criticism, " there were many rich 
and able men, and sundry of liis acquaintances ; " and he 
chose to settle in that town. In virtue of the mention of his 
name by Cotton, of Boston, when on his death-bed, as a most 
desirable man to follow him, he became the successor of that 
eminent preacher. 

" Having been often disappointed in their hopes and 
desires," at length " it pleased the Lord to send them an 

able and godly man " in the person of John 
John Rayner. He was " of a meek and humble 

Hayner spirit, sound in the truth, and every way un- 

secured reproachable in his life and conversation." 

He had the advantage, too, of a thorough 
college training, as he was a graduate of Magdalen Col- 
lege, at Cambridge, England. Rayner's ministry continued 
until 1654, or eighteen years in all. It was marked by 
unanimity in the church, much fruitfulness, and great 
comfort to the people. One of the successes of this pas- 
torate, and a way-mark in the history of the Plymouth 
church, was the erection of the first meeting-house built 
by the people. This house was put up in 1648. Up 
to this time worship had been conducted in the fort. 
Thacher says that the new building " was furnished with 
a bell." Goodwin says there was no bell until 1679. Per- 
haps all that Thacher means is that there was a belfry, 
or a place to hang a bell when they got one. This is 
likely. 

Rayner went from Plymouth to Dover, New Hampshire, 
where he was settled, and where he continued to preach 
until his death in 1669. He made fuU proof of his minis- 
try and is worthy to be commemorated. 



There was an episode of great interest in connection with 
this last pastorate. As Smith had his Roger Williams, so 
Rayner had his Charles Chauncey. The Plymouth men 



THE PILGRIMS 339 

were sound in the faith and strict in their living. At the 
same time they were tolerant. If there was anybody with 
crotchets in his head, or who had opinions 
Charles shghtiy off color which he wished to air, he 

Chauncey ^g^g more hkely, in those early days at any 
^* rate, to get a patient hearing at Plymouth 

Plymouth than in any other of the colonies. The head- 
way he could make with his crotchets and 
opinions is another tiling. 

Chauncey was a man of much more than average ability ; 
and he had the best intellectual training which the Cam- 
bridge of England could give to her pupils in 
An able those days. But while acquiring the learning, 

^^^^ he caught the spirit of that famous seat of bold 

thinking and plain speaking. Having opin- 
ions and convictions, he was true to them ; and his attitude 
on the practical questions of the time very soon brought him 
under the displeasure of Laud. The only way to escape 
the requirements and the wrath of the archbishop was to 
abandon his pulpit in the Established Church and flee to 
the New World. Shortly after his arrival in this country, 
the Plymouth people invited him to become associated with 
their pastor, who had then been their minister for two 
years, in a joint occupancy of the pulpit. He accepted and 
filled this position for three years. During that period we 
may be sure the Pilgrims had some great preaching. 

Nevertheless, it was not all smooth sailing. Storms gath- 
ered and the sea was rough. Chauncey, like WilHams, 
became a thorough-going immersionist, and 
Rough insisted that plunging is the only Scriptural 

seas mode of performing the rite of baptism. He 

also held that the only proper time to observe 
the communion is in the evening. In these views he carried 
only a small section of the church with him. Great patience 
was exercised towards him. Neighboring ministers were 
called in to meet him in argument. Written opinions from 
the ablest men in the other colonies were procured and 
submitted to his consideration, but his position remained 
unaltered. His merits were so many that the people were 
loath to part with him. But he insisted on going unless the 



340 THE PILGRIMS 

church would fall in with his ways. The alternative was 
oflfered him of remaining and baptizing in his own method 
as many as wished to be baptized after this fashion, and 
administering the communion by candle-light to all who 
preferred this time for partaking of the Lord's Supper. It 
was no use. He still insisted that the church must adopt 
his views, or he would withdraw. The result was that he 
left and went to Scituate. Here he carried out his views, 
but he spht the church. The seceders formed another 
organization, and, after a considerable period of waiting, 
found a pastor and settled him. It only remains to add 
that Chauncey succeeded Dunster, and became the second 
president of Harvard College. 

One cannot help wondering at the singular fortune of a 
little straggling church like that of the Pilgrims at Ply- 
mouth, which, in the second decade of its 
A singular existence, should have had, in its pulpit service, 
fort\me ^^q j^gjj Qf such eminent ability and worth 

that one of them became the founder of a state, 
and the other the president of an institution of learning 
destined to be an ornament to a great nation and an im- 
portant factor in the progress of learning and civilization 
throughout the world. 



XI 

Following the dismissal of Rayner, there was a period 
of at least two years in which the church had no pastor. 

There was preaching, but no settled and per- 
A minister manent occupant of the pulpit. Elder Thomas 
found at Cushman, who succeeded Elder Brewster, 

length (jij good service, no doubt, in expounding the 

Word. But after years of waiting, the man 
for the place was found; and John Cotton, Jr., a son of 
the famous divine of the Bay colony, stepped into the place 
made vacant by the going of the beloved and able Rayner. 

John Cotton was a man of exceptional efficiency. He in- 
herited no small measure of the ability of his father; and 
his mind was trained by early and thorough application to 



THE PILGRIMS 341 

study. He graduated from Harvard at the age of sixteen, 
or, possibly, seventeen. He had a remarkably retentive 

memory ; and was especially strong in his 
John knowledge of the Bible. He could preach to 

Cotton ^]^g Indians in their own tongue. He loved the 

work of the ministry, and gave himself without 
reserve to the duties of his calling. He had preached in 
various places in Connecticut, and elsewhere, for about ten 
years, when he began his work at Plymouth ; and it was 
two years after he entered on his ministry in this latter 
place before he was installed. So soon, however, as he was 
duly settled in this pastorate, which was in 1669, he took up 
his duties with system and vigor. 

To begin with, he started out on a thorough canvass of 
the spiritual condition of the entire community. In this 

effort he seems to have had the hearty co- 
Seeking operation of Mr. Thomas Cushman, who was 
the salva- then a ruling elder in the church. " The 
tion of Ruling Elder," so the fact is stated, " with 
souls tjjg pastor, made it their first special work to 

pass through the whole town, from family to 
family, to inquire into the state of souls." It is further 
said that " he was very desirous of the conversion of souls." 
Do not these two facts — the spirit and aim of the man, and 
his method of going about his work — let us into the secret 
of the marked success of Cotton in his Plymouth ministry? 
At the beginning of his pastorate there were forty-seven 
resident members of the church. The first year of his 
work saw twenty-seven added to the roll of full communi- 
cants. The next year fourteen ; the next seventeen ; and 
the next six. The record for his thirty years of toil was one 
hundred and seventy-eight. For a small church, in a small 
community, with families constantly moving into other sec- 
tions of the country, that is an exceedingly gratifying 
showing. It can do no harm to venture the suggestion that 
there may be lessons in this exhibit for our modem times. 

Loving his people with all his heart, and loved by them 
with a tender and reverent affection, yet at the end of thirty 
years a difference arose between them over the insignificant 
question of the right steps to be taken in getting into the 



342 THE PILGRIMS 

pastorate of a church. In 1694 Mr. Isaac Cushman was 
asked to become the rehgious teacher of the church in what 

is now Plympton. He accepted the invitation. 
Resigna- Cotton " strenuously contended that Mr. Cush- 
tion of man ought not to settle before being designated 

Cotton to the office of ruling elder by the Church." 

The controversy raged for three years. The 
mutual alienation was aggravated by importing into it 
some apparently groundless scandals in which the good 
pastor was said to be involved. The result was resig- 
nation and the end of a pastorate which had been of 
great service to the church and town. The retired pastor, 
after having left the pulpit, lingered in Plymouth for a 
year or so ; and it is refreshing to record that all differences 
between him and the church were made up, and the old 
relations of affection and esteem were restored. Cotton 
at the end of a little more than a twelvemonth, left Ply- 
mouth and went to Charleston, South Carolina. Here he 
gathered a church, repeated his early successes, and in 
about a year passed on to his great reward. He was a man 
of God, honored and beloved, and very serviceable in his 
day. It is greatly to the credit of his former parishioners 
in the Old Colony that they erected a stone in their burial 
ground to his memory, and placed upon it an inscription 
expressive of their appreciation. 

The ministry of Cotton, it will be seen, takes the history 
of the Plymouth church on beyond the year 1692, when the 
Old Colony was merged in the Bay colony, and the twain 
became the future magnificent commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts. 

XII 

There are not a few incidents of peculiar interest 
in connection with the history of the church of the 

colonists. 

Incidents jj^ j^jg journal Governor Winthrop describes 

of interest ^ visit he made to Plymouth, in which we get 

somewhat more than a glimpse of the way in 

which their religious meetings were sometimes, if not 



THE PILGRIMS 343 

always, conducted by the Pilgrims. It was in 1632, or 
during the time when Roger Williams was residing at 
Plymouth and assisting Pastor Smith in his 
■Winthrop's niinistry. The governor, Rev. Mr. Wilson, 
visit to g^j^fj ^^Q others, supposed to be Endicott and 

Plymouth Underbill, made a visit to the Old Colony. 
The party went a portion of the way by boat 
and the remaining distance on foot. Somehow apprised of 
their coming, Bradford, Brewster, and others went forth at 
eventide to meet the distinguished guests. They were taken 
to the governor's house ; and at his house and other houses 
they were kindly entertained and feasted every day. 

" On the Lord's Day," so the narrative continues, " was 
a sacrament, which they did partake in ; and in the after- 
noon Mr. Roger Williams, according to their custom, pro- 
pounded a question, to which their pastor, Mr. Smith, 
spoke briefly. Mr. Williams prophesied," or discussed, as 
we should say, " the topic he had submitted ; and after, the 
Governor of Plymouth spoke to the question ; after him, the 
Elder ; then some two or three more of the congregation. 
Then the Elder desired the Governor of Massachusetts and 
Mr. Wilson to speak to it, which they did. When this was 
ended, the deacon, Mr. Fuller, put the congregation in mind 
of the contribution, upon which the Governor and all the rest 
went down to the deacon's seat and put into the bag, and 
then returned." 

Does it not go without saying that a body of people 
who had the great facts and the inspiring truths of the 
Scriptures on which to exercise their minds, and whose 
methods of considering topics were such as are here de- 
scribed, and who were trained by all the experiences of life 
to a free expression of their opinions, were not entirely 
without the means of intellectual as well as spiritual 
quickening? We often speak of the lives of the first settlers 
in our New England wilderness as dull and narrow ; and it 
is certainly true that their opportunities for culture were 
narrow ; but, for all this, they did some high thinking. 

Under Cotton's leadership prayer and conference meet- 
ings came to have a place in church life and activity. So 
far as appears, up to the time of his pastorate, all the 



344 THE PILGRIMS 

general religious exercises of the Pilgrims were held on 
Sunday. Cotton induced the church to begin holding meet- 
ings for rehgious conference on a week-day. 
Prayer and These conferences were held monthly, on Satur- 
conference (j^y afternoon, preceding the communion. This 
meetings practise was continued for years. At a later 
started time, under the pastorate of Cotton's succes- 

sor, Rev. Ephraim Little, it was decided to 
broaden out this plan, and start neighborhood meetings 
in different parts of the town, " for family and other spiri- 
tual exercises." In those old days there was much praying 
as well as preaching; and the people sought to grow in 
grace and knowledge. 



xin 

Meantime other questions, more perplexing even than 
securing suitable pastors when the pulpit was vacant, had 
arisen, and other trials had come upon the 
The prob- brave little church. Growth and prosperity 
lem of brought satisfaction ; but they also brought 

church embarrassment. Almost before these fore- 

extension fathers of ours knew it, they had two perplex- 
ing problems on their hands — the problem 
of what Dr. Dawson has called " the deadening influence of 
suburbanism," and the problem of " Church-Extension." 
Instead of remaining together in the bonds of a fellowship 
which had been cemented by so many common experiences 
of hopes reahzed and hopes deferred, of joy and sorrow 
and bitterest heartaches, it seemed to be the intent of 
Providence that they should be separated and distributed 
in different directions. The lands in other localities were 
more fertile and inviting than most of those in the imme- 
diate neighborhood of the original settlement. As popula- 
tion increased and resources multiplied, larger fields and 
pastures were needed, better houses and bams, more promis- 
ing chances for the investment of labor and skill, and a 
freer sweep in general. These people were English, be it 
remembered, and, like their kindred of to-day, they wanted 



THE PILGRIMS 345 

fresh air and plenty of elbow-room. Bradford did his 
best to keep the colony unbroken ; and strong measures 
were adopted and strong influences exerted to this end. It 
was in vain. Expansion was in the air. From the outset 
this has been one of the difficulties here in America — 
things grow so fast that it is hard work to keep up with 
the demands which growth creates. The colony was grow- 
ing, but it was growing like a tree — not at the center, 
but at the circumference. 

The first serious break came in the removal of a com- 
paratively large number of important men to what came 
to be known as Duxbury. This was in 1632. 
Eemovals Four years earlier some of the colonists had 
to Dux- begun to feel their way into the occupancy of 
^'"T that region. Among the number who went at 

the date just named were Elder Brewster and 
his two sons, Jonathan and Love. The father, however, 
did not wholly retire from Plymouth, but spent a portion 
of his time there; and there, as the later writers concede, 
he died. Standish, likewise, and Alden, Sampson, Bassett, 
Soule, CoUier, Mitchell, and others of their strong and 
enterprising men, joined in this colonization of the new 
town. The removal of so many of this type of citizens at 
so nearly the same time left a disheartening gap in the Ply- 
mouth settlement. But to the end of time " Captain's Hill " 
will share in the renown of the " Rock," and devout souls 
will feel that the " Nook " is sacred soil because it was once 
trodden by the feet of Brewster. 

Quick on this dispersion there came another. Marsh- 
field, beautiful for situation and rich in agricultural prom- 
ise, sprang into an independent community. 
Marshfield The loss to Plymouth, by this change of resi- 
dence, will be appreciated when it is said that 
Winslow was the leader in the movement. The more one 
studies the Pilgrims the higher will be the esteem felt 
for the ability and character of this rare man. The re- 
moval of Winslow took along with him, of course, his step- 
son. Peregrine White, " the first English child bom in New 
England." Three of his brothers also became residents of 
Marshfield. 



346 THE PILGRIMS 

Other towns, like Scituate, Barnstable, Taunton, Yar- 
mouth, and Sandwich, sprang up at about this same 
period; but the original settlers of them 
Other came from places outside of Plymouth, and 

towns though they received accessions from the old 

town, they did not draw so heavily on her 
citizens as Duxbury and Marshfield had done. Still there 
was a heavy drain going on, and Plymouth felt it in all 
her interests and activities. 

Indeed, removals were so many, and the outlook so serious, 
that, in 1644, the question of abandoning Plymouth in a 
body and settling down in some more eligible 
Abandoning locality was taken up and very seriously con- 
Plymouth sidered. At this crisis the population was so 
debated fr^j. reduced that the " freemen and towns- 

men " were less than eighty. The movement to 
go elsewhere was led by the members of the church for the 
very natural reason that the church was the chief sufferer 
from this steady outflow. With a diminishing constituency 
it would be more and more difficult to maintain preaching. 
With the Pilgrims gospel privileges were a cardinal neces- 
sity. Matters went so far that land was purchased, in 
the name of the church, for a new home for the Plymouth 
people. The location was what is now the site of Eastham, 
on Cape Cod. 

On further examination and discussion this project was 
given up ; but a considerable number of the leading men 
were still intent on removal, and on removal to 
Decision ^}^g place just named. So the property was 
to remain bought from the church, and they went on 
and started a new town. The scheme to escape 
weakness by migration failed; but the agitation resulted 
in harm ; for it left the struggling settlement with fewer 
citizens and more limited resources than when the question 
of going or remaining was first broached. It was a trying 
hour for Bradford ; and his faith and courage were put to 
one of their severest tests. One of the most pathetic pas- 
sages in his " History " is that in which he concludes his 
account of the condition into which the church fell in conse- 
quence of this constant depletion in their numbers. " And 



THE PILGRIMS 347 

thus was this poor church left, Hke an ancient mother, 
grown old, and forsaken of her children, though not in 
their affections, yet in regard of their bodily presence and 
personal helpfulness — her ancient members being most 
of them worn away by death, and those of later time being 
hke children translated into other families, and she hke a 
widow left only to trust in God. Thus, she that made many 
rich became herself poor." 



XIV 

A wrong impression would be left on the mind of the 
reader were nothing to be said, in addition to the incidental 
references already made to them, concerning 
Other min- ^^q ministers and churches of the colony 
Isters and -wliose fields of operation were outside of 
churches Plymouth. 

It would be foolish to claim that the ministers 
of the Pilgrim settlement were equal in ability, in scholar- 
ship, in reputation, and in lasting fame and influence, to 
the ministers of the Puritan settlement. Cotton, Wilson, 
and the Mathers are the commanding figures of that early 
historic period in Massachusetts. Ehot has no peer in the 
regard of subsequent generations. The churches of Bos- 
ton had numbers and wealth ; and they could command the 
best talent to be found in the dissenting ranks ; and men 
distinguished for their native gifts had at the Bay a sub- 
stantial backing for effective work and wide ascendency. 

Were the comparisons extended to the other New Eng- 
land colonies — New Haven and Hartford — the same con- 
clusion would be reached. The Plymouth people had no 
man in their permanent pastorates who was the equal of 
John Davenport. Still less had they any man who could 
measure up to the large stature of Thomas Hooker, of Con- 
necticut. Roger Williams, of Rhode Island, has surpassed 
them all in the hold which he has taken upon the world. 

But while it would show a lack of sound discrimination 
to insist that the pastors of the churches in the Plymouth 
colony were equal to the pastors of the churches in the 



348 THE PILGRIMS 

Bay colony, it must be conceded that not a few of the min- 
isters who filled the pulpits of the Pilgrim towns were men 
of exceptional abilities and high character. They had 
practical sense ; they were scholars ; they were alive to 
the demands of the hour ; they were devoted to their work ; 
and they were open-eyed to the future of their great 
venture in civil and ecclesiastical democracy. 

The names of some of these, like Rayner and Cotton of 
Plymouth, Chauncey, who in the course of his career on this 
side of the water was of Plymouth, Scituate, and Cam- 
bridge, Treat of Eastham, who did such a worthy and suc- 
cessful work among the Indians, have already been before us ; 
and others will be in other connections. It seems fit, how- 
ever, to note more specifically two or three men who were 
prominent in the Old Colony pulpits, and whose services 
were of marked value. 

Ralph Partridge, who was settled over the Duxbury 
church in 1637, and who held his place till his death, twenty- 
one years later, was a leader whose abilities 
Ralph Part- ^ere widely recognized. He was driven out 
ridge ^f England by Laud, and he never forgot the 

ideas for which he stood and for which he had 
suffered. He was associated with John Cotton and Richard 
Mather in drawing up the Cambridge Platform. 

A successor of Partridge, though the second from him 
in the line of succession, was Ichabod Wiswell. He was born 
at Dorchester, in the Bay colony. Another has 
Ichabod described him as " a man of learning, power, 

Wiswell j^j^(j sincerity." He was all this and more. He 

was intensely patriotic, and as dauntless as a 
lion. It was Wiswell who was a thorn in the side of Andros, 
when he was the agent of a bigoted and tyrannical king, 
in his efforts to reduce the colonists to a complete subjec- 
tion, and who defiantly endured the pain and humiUation 
which he had to suffer in consequence. It was Wiswell who 
was sent over to England, in 1691, to make protest against 
the merging of the Plymouth colony in the Bay colony. 
He failed in his purpose, as was well; but it shows the 
standing of the man, and the esteem in which he was held, 
that he was chosen for this important service. 



THE PILGRIMS 349 

It is an Interesting fact that two men who were associated 
with the church at Taunton, the one as pastor and the 
other as teacher, should have been associated, 
Nicholas though in the reverse order, with Davenport's 
Street church, — the First Church of Christ, or as 

it is more popularly known, the " Old Center 
Church," in New Haven. Wilham Hooke, supposed to be 
an Oxford graduate, was the first pastor of the church at 
Taunton. He had for his associate Nicholas Street, who 
is also supposed to have been graduated from Oxford. 
Hooke left Taunton and went to New Haven and allied 
himself with Davenport. Street succeeded to the office of 
pastor. Hooke was a relative of Cromwell ; and when 
things grew hot in England, he left New Haven and went 
back to his native land to be near to the great leader of the 
Revolution. Street succeeded him again. He resigned at 
Taunton, and accepted a call to the office of teacher in the 
New Haven church. When Davenport went to Boston, 
Street became pastor, and in that office he continued until 
he died. He was thus thought worthy to be a link in the 
chain of succession which was to begin with John Daven- 
port, and include the illustrious names of Taylor and 
Bacon. Dr. Bacon says of him : " He appears to have 
been a pious, judicious, modest man." He says further, 
that his writings " show great clearness of thought, and 
some pungency of style." " That he was no inferior 
preacher," he continues, " may be inferred from the fact 
that he was found worthy to succeed Mr. Hooke, and that 
he maintained his standing as the colleague of Mr. 
Davenport." 

Besides these who have had special mention, there were 
others in the colony who deserve to be kept in remem- 
brance, both for what they were and for what 
Worthy of they did. Lothrop, of Barnstable, was a man 
remem- ^f clear brain, deep convictions, and eminent 

brance usefulness ; Newman, of Rehoboth, while vig- 

orously pushing the interests of the town, 
and making full proof of his ministry, found time to 
revise and reissue his " Cambridge Concordance." Sam- 
uel Lee, of Bristol, was a somewhat eccentric character; 



350 THE PILGRIMS 

but he had the power of a positive personality. Keith, 
of Bridgewater, did good service, and left behind him a 
fragrant memory. There came a time in the history of the 
Plymouth colony when the tides of religion were at ebb ; 
but there never came a time when the Pilgrim churches 
did not have a less or larger number of men in their pulpits 
who, in virtue of their ability, their attainments, and their 
character, were fitted to do good work for the Master. 

The mother church, as we have seen, remained at Ply- 
mouth, and was more prosperous in the last thirty years of 
the century than it had been in the preceding fifty years. 
This church has had other severe trials in the course of its 
history ; and it has known what it is to be turned and over- 
turned; but, a vine of the Lord's planting and the Pil- 
grim's watering, it still Hves and witnesses to the truth at 
Plymouth Rock. 



XVI 

SETTING UP SCHOOLS 



Viewed from any angle, ignorance is the costliest crop that can be raised 
in any part of this Union. . . . The public school is not merely the educa- 
tional center for the mass of our people, but is the factory of American 
citizenship. — Theodore Roosevelt. 

America in the making was intelligent, moral, religious, and religiously 
devoted to the education of children. — Whitelaw Reid. 

Our public school system is unquestionably the most distinctively Amer- 
ican institution which this country has produced; and since that great 
civil contest between the two civilizations of the North and the South was 
settled by the war of secession, this system has been growing to a greater and 
greater importance. — William A. Mowry. 

As an innovation upon all preexisting policy and usage, the estabUsh- 
ment of free schools was the boldest ever promulgated since the commence- 
ment of this Christian era. As a theory, it could have been refuted and 
silenced by a more formidable array of arguments and experience than was 
ever marshaled against any other opinion of human origin. But time has 
ratified its soundness. The centuries now proclaim it to be as wise as it was 
courageous, as beneficent as it was disinterested. — Horace Mann. 

One of the most memorable events in the history of the Commonwealth 
is the estabhshment, for the first time in the world, of free pubUc schools 
supported by a general tax. The early colonists seemed to have an intuitive 
idea that a free state and free public schools hold the relation of dependence 
on each other. They had no sooner come to the land which they had chosen 
for their new home, and had provided for their immediate physical wants, 
and had erected their simple places of worship, than they established schools 
for the free education of all the children. — J. W. Dickinson. 

Not only the success of our democracy, but the skill, thrift, fortunes, 
thinking, and happiness of the people, and therefore the moral greatness of 
the Nation, depend upon providing a school for every child and making sure 
that he goes to it. — Andrew S. Draper. 

We should ever promote, as an object of primary importance, institutions 
for the general diffusion of knowledge ; for it is essential that public opinion 
should be enUghtened. — George Washington. 



XVI 

SETTING UP SCHOOLS 

IN turning to the attitude of the Pilgrims towards 
schools we must be prepared for a double surprise — 
first, that so much was really done, and second, that so 
little was said about it in the records of the time. Neither 
in their laws, nor annals, nor incidental narratives of the 
early years at Plymouth do schools cut any considerable 
figure. It was to be expected that in the first stages of the 
settlement of the colony but little attention could be given 
to the subject of education. The fight was for bread and 
a secure foothold. At no time, however, was education 
neglected. From the outset " the hearts of the fathers were 
turned to the children." 



In his " History " Bradford makes no mention of the 
training of the young until the year 1624, save that he 

names the proper training of them as one of 
First men- ^j^g reasons for leaving Leyden. In his chapter 
tion of fQj. ^}jg year just indicated he replied to a criti- 

trammg gjgjj^ which had been made on the colony. The 

the yoiuig criticism was to the effect that the children 

of the Pilgrims were neither taught to read, 
nor to recite the catechism. Our author declares that 
the report was not true. On the contrary he asserts that 
*' divers take pains with their own as they can ; indeed, we 
have no common school for want of a fit person, or hitherto 
means to maintain one; though we desire now to begin." 

23 



354 THE PILGRIMS 

Here, were both the germ and the prophecy of what was to 
be — schools for all the children and all the children in 
the schools. 

Concerning the training of children in those first years 
at Plymouth two facts are to be kept in mind. 

The first is that there were not many children 
Hot many ^q y>q trained. Of the twelve children brought 
children j^q Plymouth by the Mayflower only seven sur- 
vived the fatal sickness of the first winter. 
How many children were included in the families of the 
Leyden church which came over in the Fortune in 1621 ; 
or in the Anne and Little James in 1623 ; or in the May- 
flower in 1629; or in the Handmaid in 1630, does not 
appear from any statements now at hand. There were 
some, but not many. Nor was the increase of children from 
births very rapid during the first few years. There were 
children enough to have called for a school had there been 
any teacher available, or money to meet the expenses ; but 
the numbers were not large. 

The second fact to be kept in mind is that the Pilgrims 
had had a first-class experience in family training. They 
had lived for twelve years in Holland. There 
Family were schools; but the teaching was in a for- 

training eign tongue. Especially solicitous for the wel- 

fare of their children, and eager to hold them 
in loyalty to the speech, and customs of the dear land from 
which they had been driven, it was only natural that exiles 
should turn every home into a schoolhouse and make the 
education of their offspring an important part of their 
domestic economy. When these people set up their homes 
in the wilderness, they were not only alive to the necessity 
and value of a proper training for those who were to come 
after them, but they were in some ways peculiarly fitted 
for the task. Men of the intelligence and character of 
Bradford, Brewster, Winslow, and Fuller were suffi(;ient 
pledge that the youth of their little community would not 
be permitted to grow up in ignorance, even though the time 
had not yet come for starting a common school. Besides, 
men of the second generation, hke Wilham Bradford, Jr., 
Josiah Winslow, Thomas Cushman, and others, who, as 



THE PILGRIMS 355 

Davis says, " were reared under parental education alone," 
show how wise and thorough the training must have been. 

These two facts shed not a little light on the situation. 
There were no schools at first, not alone because there was 
no teacher, and no money to support a school, but because 
the need was not pressing. Imparting knowledge to the 
young, training them into habits of thoughtfulness, im- 
pressing them with a sense of the worth of industry and 
virtue, were fundamental to the ideas of the Pilgrims, 
and a part of the vital breath of their domestic, religious, 
and civic systems. 

II 

It is evident that the hope expressed by the governor 
when he wrote, as in a preceding paragraph, that there was 

no common school in Plymouth, but threw out 
Schools i}^Q intimation that there would be such a 

started school in no long time, was realized very soon, 

early Pqj. incidental references make it clear that 

schoolmasters were abroad at an early date. 
In the footnote found in his "History of New England," Dr. 
Palfrey says that an ancestress of his, who was a daughter 
of John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley, and hence one of 
the first generation of children born to the Pilgrims on 
these shores, " signed her name in her old age, as adminis- 
tratrix of her husband's estate in an almost clerkly hand.'* 
Somebody was doing some satisfactory teaching. Either 
the professional instructorof youth had appeared and set up 
in business, or family instruction was all that has just been 
claimed for it. But there is a more convincing proof of the 
existence of the school. In 1635, a boy, eight years of age, 
by the name of Eaton, was apprenticed to Bridget Fuller 
under terms which required her " to keep him at school two 
years." This imphes schools in full operation. It is pos- 
sible, of course, that all which is meant by it is that the lad 
was to have the benefit of family training, after some regu- 
lar sort, for the period named ; but this is not likely. The 
stipulation looks to the existence of a school to which the 
boy might go and be taught. In the first class which gradu- 



356 THE PILGRIMS 

ated from Harvard in 1642, Plymouth had a representative. 
In the class of 1650 there was another graduate from the 
Old Colony. Unquestionably these young men must have 
been fitted for college, in part at least, by private tuition. 
Such incidents, however, show the estimate placed by the 
Pilgrims on learning, and the atmosphere of eager desire 
for learning which pervaded the community. With the 
Bible what it was to them, and with a Bible in all probability 
in every home — for neither the King James Version nor 
the Geneva Version, the one they would be most likely to 
use, was at that time so expensive as to be out of the reach of 
the people in general — it might go almost without saying 
that these devout and earnest men, who had crossed the 
seas in order that they might build their church, and conduct 
their homes and their state on the principles of the W^ord of 
God, would see to it that their children were sufficiently 
instructed to read its sacred pages for themselves. 



Ill 

It was forty years after the landing at Plymouth before 
positive enactments on the subject of education began to 
appear on the statute books. In 1663 vigorous 
Legislation steps seem to have been taken. Towns — not 
on school only Plymouth but other towns which had 
question grown out of the original settlement, like Dux- 
bury, Marshfield, and the rest of them — were 
required by the court, the law-making body, to take into 
serious consideration the matter of securing schoolmasters, 
" to train up children to reading and writing." Nothing 
beyond a wholesome agitation of the question came of this 
move. But all the while the subject of schools was in the 
air. Four or five years after the above action by the court, 
one John Morton, a nephew of the Nathaniel Morton who 
was so long secretary of the colony, came forward and 
" offered to teach children and youth of the town to read 
and write and cast accounts, on reasonable considerations." 
This offer was not accepted at once; but in 1671 the town 
fell in with the proposition and the school was started. 



THE PILGRIMS 357 

Meantime, in 1670, very important legislation had been 
enacted. The court made a grant of all the profits annu- 
ally accruing to the colony " for fishing with nets or seines 
at Cape Cod for mackerel, bass, or herrings, to be improved 
for and towards a free school in some town in this jurisdic- 
tion, provided a beginning was made within one year of the 
grant." This income fell to the mother town and went to 
the support of the school with which Morton was identified. 
Later, in 1672, additional support was given to the school. 
The town voted unanimously to devote the profits of " their 
lands at Sipican and Agawam and places adj acent " to- 
wards the maintenance of " a free school now begun or 
erected at Plymouth." These lands were to be " improved 
and employed " for this purpose ; and the funds derived 
from them were to be set apart and sacredly devoted to the 
support of learning. 

This school was to be a classical as well as an elementary 
school. Up to this time the course of study had been more 

closely confined to the rudiments. Owing to 
Classical differences of opinion among the people as to 
school too tj^g value to them in their circumstances and 
advanced stage of development of classical learning, this 

school in its advanced form had its ups and 
downs. The free features of it, however, had a secure place 
in the common confidence; and, at the beginning of the 
succeeding century, the free school became an accepted and 
abiding policy of the new community. 



IV 

The claim has been made that the Old Colony is entitled 
to the honor of having set up " the first free school ordained 
by law in New England." Thacher, in his 
Claim the « History of Plymouth," makes this assertion, 
first free Davis, in his " Ancient Landmarks," reaffirms 
school |-}^g statement. The claim is based on the estab- 

hshment of the school just mentioned. The 
claim will hardly hold. 

About the middle of the last decade a committee was ap- 



858 THE PILGRIMS 

pointed by the proper authorities in Massachusetts to ascer- 
tain along with one other object which was specified, the ex- 
act locahty of " the first free public school '* in 
Investiga- ^j^g commonwealth. This action was taken with 
tion by ^ view to marking the site, if found, with a 

committee suitable monument. One who has any f amihar- 
ity with the early history of the old Bay State 
will readily understand that there must have been many 
contestants for this signal honor, Boston, Charlestown, 
Salem, Dorchester, Newbury, Ipswich, Duxbury, and other 
towns, as well as Plymouth, would be sure to put in their 
proofs of priority in a competition so commendable. Natur- 
ally one would think that the search for a fact like this 
might have been rewarded with success. It was not. 

The committee felt obliged to report that the place, 
where " the first free public school supported by general 
taxation was started, could not be satisfactorily 
Report of determined. The trouble in settling the ques- 
committee ^^jo^ grows out of the fact that many of the 
earhest town records are lost, while those which 
have been preserved are often so meager and uncertain 
as to be of little or no value in helping to trustworthy con- 
clusions." It is very clear that the honor does not belong 
to Plymouth. It is equally clear that Plymouth was in line 
with other towns — with other and very much larger and 
wealthier towns in the Bay colony — in making provisions 
for free public schools. 



It is a matter of small concern, however, whether the 
system of free schools, such as we have come to know it in 

the United States, originated in one colony or 
^^®® another, or in one town or another. It was a 

schools a magnificent achievenuent. There is " glory 
glorious enough in it to go round " and afford to each 
achieve- ^j^ abundant share. Both these colonies and 

ment ^11 these towns took advance ground. Made up 

largely of the " common people," they came 
easily and quickly into the apprehension and under the 



THE PILGRIMS 359 

domination of ideas on education which no Enghsh cabinet 
has been able even yet to reach. No human eye can pene- 
trate the future, and forecast what changes in opinions and 
methods the unfolding years may disclose ; but, from pres- 
ent points of view, it is difficult to anticipate an age when 
the free schools, which were estabhshed by the Pilgrims in 
the Old Colony and by the Puritans in the Bay colony, will 
not continue to be one of the chief distinctions of the com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts and of our great republic. 

"From the cold northern pine. 
Far toward the burning line. 
Spreads the luxuriant vine 
Bending with fruit." 



XVII 

DEVELOPMENT OF THEIR LAWS 



In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized man, of 
the attempt to construct society upon a new basis ; and it was there, for the 
first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed impracticable, were to 
exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not been prepared by the history 
of the past. — Alexis De Tocqueville. 

The English Colonies, having been foimded as private enterprises, some 
of them under the protection of Royal Charters, were freer than those of 
Spain, Portugal, and France, to work out, amidst their novel environments, 
an original system of government, and to form distinct social habits and 
customs ; and therefore, though moulded on ancestral models, they were not 
direct reflections of European originals. — James Douglas. 

Their government was not like the Constitution under which our nation 
now lives, moulded and shaped and perfect as a whole. It was evolved from 
a simple germ, demanding and receiving new treatment as it grew, and 
finding in the practical hands of its projectors a ready application of remedies 
for defects, of measures for the removal of obstacles, of new laws for new 
requirements, and new officers for new labors and duties. 

William T. Davis. 

He who believes that the early legislation of New England was distin- 
guished, in its time, by the severity of its penalties, knows httle of the history 
of Criminal laws in Great Britain or America. 

J. Hammond Trumbull. 



XVII 
DEVELOPMENT OF THEIR LAWS 

WE have seen on what foundation the civil govern- 
ment of the Pilgrims was erected. It was on the 
basis of equal rights and common duties. No 
man might claim privileges which were denied to other men ; 
nor shrink from meeting obligations which rested on all 
ahke. In the compact which had been adopted. King 
James was recognized as sovereign ; and by implication, 
if not by definite avowal, the laws of England were regarded 
as of binding force. As a matter of fact, however, the 
colony, while acknowledging the sovereignty of the king, 
was yet a sovereignty in itself. As the great author of 
" Democracy in America " says : " They exercised the rights 
of sovereignty ; they named their magistrates, concluded 
peace or declared war, made police regulations, and enacted 
laws as if their allegiance was due only to God." It was 
a democratic sovereignty, and its affairs were managed 
after a democratic fashion. These plain Englishmen made 
and administered their own laws. Questions of public con- 
cern were discussed and settled in popular assemblies. 
Power was lodged in the people. Governors ruled by con- 
sent of the governed. It was for the body politic to de- 
termine who should be magistrates, and what should be the 
measure of authority wielded by them, and how long they 
should hold office. 



At the outset everything was simple. The government 
was run with the least possible machinery. That great 
achievement and instrument of justice — trial by jury — 
was recognized and set up. With no lawyers, and not much 



364 THE PILGRIMS 

law, and few cases to be tried, juries for a long time were 
little other than boards of arbitration. There was a gov- 
ernor, and, until 1624<, only a single assistant; 
Government though at this date the number was increased 
simple at Iq fjyg^ J^J^(J a,t a later date to seven. The head 
tlie outset Qf the Httle state could give advice, look after 
the general interests, execute orders, and as- 
sume responsibility in emergencies ; but he was servant 
and not master. This was all these chief officials aspired 
to be — servants and not masters. On occasion, when 
distinguished visitors were to be received, or Indian chiefs 
and their braves were to be impressed, the airs of royalty 
were sometimes assumed and the formalities of state were ob- 
served by these chosen leaders. In general there was no 
official pomp, no pride of position, no theatrical displays 
of the badges of a httle brief authority, and no noise in the 
administration of law. Attempts in this direction would 
have been ludicrous ; but there was no disposition to strut 
and parade. The men at the top wrought on equal terms 
with the men at the bottom. Whether, without exception, 
they all prayed for their daily bread we may not know, but 
they all toiled for it. The first governor of the colony 
was stricken with his fatal illness while engaged in plant- 
ing his fields. Under God, the state stood for equal rights, 
for order and justice and safety on the simplest terms and 
in the simplest way, and for nothing else. 

n 

For a decade and a half the Pljrmouth colonists had no 
fundamental law except the compact which had been drawn 

up and signed in the cabin of the Mayflower. 
Revision Indeed, the colony never had any other funda- 
"^d mental law. In this instrument there were 

codification two guiding principles, and only two — alle- 
of laws giance to the king and the right of the major- 

needed jty to rule. The latter principle held in it all 

sorts of possibilities for democracy, and very 
distinct prophecies of what was to be in the future. From 
the day of its adoption by the Pilgrims until now it has 



THE PILGRIMS 365 

not lost any of its vital force. It has gained rather in the 
confidence of mankind. The comer-stone of their httle 
republic, it is the corner-stone of our great republic, the 
republic which has come to be the mightiest and happiest 
nation on earth. 

But something beyond this was found to be necessary. 
For though the compact had been adopted, and it had 
been determined that equality of rights should be the con- 
trolling factor in their legislation, the form of govern- 
ment, the number and duties of officials, the limitations of 
authority, courts and juries, police and military regula- 
tions, the applicability of English statutes to themselves, 
and other details of administration, were matters still to 
be worked out and settled. 

In an important passage bearing on this point, Baylies, 
in his " History of New Plymouth," says : " No laws were 
made for the general organization of the gov- 
The facts ernment ; the Umits of political rights and 
set forth pohtical powers were not defined; the gover- 
nors and assistants maintained their small 
portion of authority rather by common consent than by 
lawful delegation of power. The royal authority was 
recognized, and the laws of England were considered as 
having force in the colony, unless altered or repealed by 
colonial statutes ; but it was very difficult to ascertain 
the character, authority, and force of those laws." The 
same author goes on to say : " Crimes and punishments 
were neither declared nor defined. . . . The only magis- 
trates were the governors and assistants. The office of 
justice of the peace was unknown. Trials were had in the 
general court before juries selected from the whole body 
of the freemen of the colony; and until 1634 the Governor 
and assistants were not by law considered a judicial court. 
The magistrates had no jurisdiction of civil actions, and 
in criminal offenses their jurisdiction was confined to the 
power of * binding over ' the accused to appear at the 
general court." 

To illustrate the condition of things here portrayed, it 
may be said that there were no laws on the statute books 
covering the mutual relations and obhgations of husbands 



366 THE PILGRIMS 

and wives, of parents and children, of masters and servants. 
There were no laws touching the probate of wills and the 
administration of estates, save that the governor and his 
assistants were authorized to discharge these functions. 
There were few, if any, applicable to the many questions 
likely to arise in the contact of the colonists with the 
Indians. They had policies in regard to the wise way of 
dealing with the Indians, but their policies were not yet 
defined in laws. There were laws declaring every person 
within the jurisdiction liable to the performance of military 
duty. There were enactments concerning fishing, hunting, 
damages committed by domestic animals, and setting fires 
in the woods. There were other legal regulations, though 
for the most part these were only temporary expedients or 
devices. For fifteen years the statute books of the Ply- 
mouth colony were exceedingly bare of the traces of 
legislation. 

How then were rights secured, order maintained, and 
progress registered? The answer is at hand. The deep 
and pervading sense of equality, the general 
How rights respect for what was fair and right, the laws 
were Qf \\^q fatherland so far as they could be 

secured adapted to the needs of a people in circum- 

stances so unlike those of the people for whom 
they were originally intended, and the fine spirit and pur- 
pose of the members of it, kept the colony on right lines 
and moving straight forward to its high destiny. The 
state was sovereign ; it exercised sovereign powers ; still 
it had only a few laws. Order was maintained, justice was 
administered, the general welfare was promoted, and a 
large measure of happiness was secured ; but it was all on 
the basis of democratic equality. Nor is this all that is to 
be said. These achievements and these results had been 
brought to pass, not in virtue of a complete system of laws, 
but after a kind of opportunist fashion. It was a day-by- 
day proceeding, a political living from hand to mouth, 
meeting each exigency as it arose. It helps to show with 
how few laws good people can get on. It also helps to 
show that even good people, placed in a world like ours, 
and having their own human nature to contend with, sooner 



THE PILGRIMS 367 

or later discover that a well-defined, well-ordered, and well- 
equipped government is essential to peace and prosperity. 



ni 

In 1636, a signal advance was made by the colonists in 
the adoption of a definite system of laws. As has been 

said, the compact drawn up and signed in the 
System of cabin of the Mayflower was the fundamental 
^^^^ law of the new state. In their legislation the 

adopted Pilgrims were guided by the conception of 

equal rights and common duties announced in 
this great instrument. They also found warrant and direc- 
tion for their enactments in the patent which had been 
granted to them in 1621 through John Pierce by the 
company that was charged with the affairs of New Eng- 
land. So, too, they were helped in knowing what they 
might and might not do by the patent issued to William 
Bradford in 1629. But their laws, as there has been oc- 
casion to say already, were largely temporary expedients. 
They were framed and passed to meet the exigency of the 
hour. It was only natural, therefore, at the end of this 
period of fifteen years, for the leaders to feel that the 
time had come for a thorough examination and complete 
overhauling of their statutes. It appears from the record 
that on the assembling of the general court in 1636 the 
laws of the colony were read. Since there were not many 
of these laws it would not take long to go over them. On 
listening to them, it was found that " divers of them were 
worthy the reforming, others the rejecting, and others fit 
to be instituted and made." Thereupon, a committee of 
eight, from the three towns of Plymouth, Duxbury, and 
Scituate, was appointed to cooperate with the governor 
and his assistants in revising existing statutes and pro- 
posing such others as seemed to be necessary. From this 
time on the Pilgrims had a consistent body of laws — a 
code. This code was the deHberate and authoritative ex- 
pression of their ideas of the way in which justice was to 
be administered and order in the community best pro- 



368 THE PILGRIMS 

moted. Laws are photographs, not of ideal, but of the 
actual conditions of a people at the time they are passed. 
Examining these laws to-day, we see in them the spirit of 
the men who made them ; the evils which they encountered ; 
the tendencies they dreaded ; the conception of right-deal- 
ing between man and man which they entertained ; the 
measure of restraint which they thought ought to be 
thrown about wrong-doing, and the kind and degree of 
encouragement which they deemed it wise to extend to 
industry and thrift, to honest and earnest living. 



TV 

Associated with the adoption of this code of laws there 
was an avowal of rights made by these sturdy democratic 

legislators well worthy of reverent study by 
Declaration their descendants. In this avowal there is a 
of rights note which sounds strangely familiar when we 

get down to later times and are listening to 
the speeches of Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, and 
reading the resolves of continental congresses and the 
Declaration of Independence. It is a surprising docu- 
ment, calm, measured, but bold to the point of audacity. 
Gathered together from different clauses of the enactment, 
condensed and modernized by the author of the " History 
of New Pl3TTiouth " already quoted, but given with accur- 
acy, this is the courageous avowal of principle and pur- 
pose : " We the associates of New Plymouth, coming 
hither as the freeborn subjects of the State of England, 
and endowed with all and singular the privileges belonging 
to such, being assembled do ordain that no act, imposition, 
law, or ordinance be made or imposed upon us at the 
present or to come, but such as shall be made and imposed 
by consent of the body of associates or their representa- 
tives legally assembled, which is according to the liberties 
of the State of England." 

Here were insight and courage of the first order — 
insight to perceive their rights and courage to state them 
in terms not to be misunderstood. Give time for the idea, 



THE PILGRIMS 369 

so clearly discerned and so unequivocally announced, to take 
root, and add the fertilization of harsh treatment, and how 

surely wiU this assertion of rights grow into 
Insight and ^he further assertion of independence! What 
courage ^ service it was to the world — first of all 

to draw up the Mayflower Compact and make 
it the basis of the civil pohty of a state, and then to 
supplement this action, so soon as there was occasion 
for it, with a resolution in which the principles of the 
compact were not only reaffirmed but made aggressive! 
What are a few eccentricities in legislation, or even a few 
grave mistakes in determining what are crimes, and ad- 
justing penalties, in comparison with the calm and reso- 
lute announcement of pohtical conceptions so fundamental 
and far-reaching! 



What were these laws — or rather what were some of the 
more characteristic of them? It will help us to a better 
understanding of the Pilgrims, and enable us 
Some of to see how far they had cut loose from old 

the specific traditions, and how far they were still under 
laws of bondage to the temper and usages of their 

this code times, if we tarry at this point long enough to 
answer the question here propounded. It will 
help us also to this same better understanding of the Pil- 
grims, if, in connection with our examination of some of the 
laws of this code, we cast an eye forward and look at some 
of their subsequent legislation. 

We have already seen how much in advance of their age 
the Pilgrims were in their conception of the fundamental 
principles on which a state should be organized, and of the 
measure of equal rights which should enter into the poHcies 
and laws of a just commonwealth. Were they as much in 
advance of their age in their actual legislation as they were 
in their conception of fundamental principles and equal 
rights? Did their practise keep in close touch with their 
theories? In other words, were their ideas of government 
found to be workable, and did they try to work them? 

24 



370 THE PILGRIMS 

In estimating the civilization reached by peoples or 
periods it is important to consider them from many points 

of view. But if it is necessary to confine the 
Penal laws study to a single point, then the treatment 

accorded to crimes will be found to be one of 
the most illuminating. What do they count crimes, and 
how do they deal with them.? Looking at the Pilgrims in 
this hght, it will be found that in penal legislation they 
were just as much in advance of the prevailing practises 
of the day as they were in their theories. In the revised 
statutes, of 1636, there were only six crimes which were 
punishable by death. These were treason, murder, witch- 
craft, arson, rape, and crimes against nature. Baylies 
seems to say that there were only five capital offences under 
the laws of the Pilgrims ; and Goodwin follows him in 
naming this number, though later on in his book he enumer- 
ates the full list of a half-dozen. But even were he not to 
do so, the crime for which one of the ten persons who were 
convicted and executed by the Plymouth colonists within 
the seventy years of their independent existence, makes it 
clear that the number was six. 

Whether five or six, however, the humanity which hmited 
the Hst of the capital offenses to this small number becomes 

amazing as weU as gratifying when a few 
Comparisons comparisons are made. At the time the Pil- 
instituted grims left Scrooby, the Enghsh law-books 

enumerated thirty-one crimes for which a man 
might be deprived of his hfe. For more than two centuries 
the brutality steadily increased. In 1819, incredible as it 
may appear, there were two hundred and twenty-three 
offenses which, in the judgments of British parliaments, 
might be suitably punished by death. In their first codes, 
Massachusetts and Connecticut each had twelve capital 
offenses. At a later date, in both colonies two were added 
to the lists. New Haven had about the same number. 
Virginia named seventeen. J. Hammond Trumbull, who 
took pains to look up the records of state trials, has 
said : " In the reform of penal legislation New England 
was at least a century in advance of the mother country.'* 
True, and true with emphasis. But at what a marked 



THE PILGRIMS 371 

distance was the older colony at Plymouth in advance of 
her younger and more vigorous sister colonies at Boston 
and Hartford and New Haven ! As we have seen, the laws 
of the Pilgrims provided for punishment by death in six 
cases. The administration was milder than the code. 
Punishments took place under only two specifications. 
There were no convictions for either treason, or witchcraft, 
or arson, or assaults on virtue. William Penn was in ad- 
vance of them all; for, in the code which he drew up and 
gave to his colony, murder was the only crime for which 
the penalty was to be life for life. But Penn was a pro- 
prietary governor, and could impose his will — albeit one 
of the best instructed and most benevolent wills ever exer- 
cised by the leader of a people, upon those whom he had 
gathered about him, while the Pilgrims were a pure democ- 
racy in which every man had an unquestioned right to 
utter his opinions. It is in this light that their humanity 
is so remarkable. It was the popular voice. 



There were other forms of punishment for infraction 
of law and disorderly conduct, which, though falling short 

of taking life, were yet harsh. Some of these 
Other punishments, while quite in line with the cus- 

forms of j^Qi^ Qf ^}^g times, were quite out of line with 
punishment ^j^g kindly disposition and advanced views 

of the Pilgrims in matters of penal legislation 
and practise. 

For especially exasperating offenders they had the stocks 
and the whipping-post. In extreme cases — like those of 
Billington, who refused to obey orders and became abu- 
sive of Standish ; and Dotey and Lister, who shocked the 
whole community by fighting a duel — they had the cruel 
device of tying the head and feet of culprits together and 
exposing them to the public gaze. Billington does not seem 
to have been cured of his viciousness by this painful and 
humiliating treatment; but Dotey and Lister fought no 
more duels, and they had no successors in this barbarous 



372 THE PILGRIMS 

method of vindicating wounded honor. Sometimes, as in 
the instance of the widow of Billington, the penalty inflicted 
was the threefold one of a fine, the stocks, and a public 
whipping. The slander of a good man by a woman whose 
husband had been hung for murder, and whose standing 
among her associates had never been high, seemed to the 
authorities of the colony an offense which called for ex- 
emplary punishment. Often condemned offenders escaped 
the stocks or the whipping-post by paying or providing 
for the payment of a fine. Those whose head and feet were 
tied together were hardly ever forced to serve out their full 
sentence. 

Other laws were framed which grate unpleasantly on 
modem feelings. In 1668 an act was passed authorizing 
imprisonment for debt. Efforts had evidently been made 
by somebody to escape meeting just demands by fraud 
or cheating, and this was an attempt to head off such 
schemes. The Plymouth colonists would have been the 
last men in the world to confine a debtor in jail when he had 
nothing with which to meet his obligations. It was for 
this reason that, at a much earher date than the foregoing 
enactment, a severe penalty was affixed to the crime of forg- 
ing deeds to lands. This was a heavy fine ; but " in case 
of inability to pay the fine whipping and burning an F in 
the face was substituted." The " Scarlet Letter " was like- 
wise authorized when occasion seemed to call for it. No 
instances of the execution of these penalties by the Ply- 
mouth people have fallen under notice in books read, or 
records examined. But the leaders always stood in great 
horror of both dishonesty and licentiousness. 

Time and experience, aided by much sober reflection, and 
by increased facihties for housing and holding persons 
charged with crimes and misdemeanors, moderated the 
cruelty of these laws and brought in a more rational and 
liumane method of restraining vice and chastising wrong- 
doers. All traces of barbarism faded from their statute- 
books. 

Concerning laws other than those which had to do with 
crime and vice which were enacted by the Plymouth colo- 
nists, all it is necessary to say is that they followed Eng- 



THE PILGRIMS 373 

llsh precedents, so far as conditions permitted. Only 
these laws from first to last kept the fundamental prin- 
ciple of equal rights steadily in view, and 
C^'^^ through and through were informed with the 

^^^^ spirit of the great compact. Beginning in 

a church, the state was never allowed to for- 
get God. Its policies were framed, its actions were shaped, 
its hfe was guided after the pattern of what was conceived 
to be a high type of practical righteousness. The Pil- 
grims sought to make their laws spell exact justice and 
a fair chance for all, and they largely succeeded in what 
they sought. It would be difficult to find in all history 
a people who on the whole can better afford to be judged 
by what is on their statute books than the Pilgrims. 



VII 

Here it is necessary to retrace our steps for a little that 
we may deal with another phase of the poHtical Hfe of the 
Plymouth colony. In 1638 an important 
Change to change was made in the form of government, 
representa- j^ ^^s a change from a pure to a representa- 
tive gov- i[yQ democracy. So long as the colony was 
ernment small and confined to a limited area, it was pos- 

sible for all the voters to assemble in one place 
and do their business. With expansion this ceased to be 
practicable. It is true there were only three incorpo- 
rated towns — Plymouth, Duxbury, and Scituate — within 
the jurisdiction of the colony when the new plan was 
adopted ; but other towns were in sight and fast approach- 
ing. When the first representative assembly met in 1639, 
or at any rate before the session closed, four new towns — 
Taunton, Sandwich, Yarmouth, and Barnstable — had per- 
fected their organization and become duly incorporated. 
Marshfield was to fall in line and enter the fellowship 
within a year. Each town was to have two representa- 
tives, or deputies as they called them, except Plymouth, 
which was allowed to have four. 

This miniature congress was composed of two branches. 



374 THE PILGRIMS 

The governor and his seven assistants constituted one 
branch, while the town deputies made up the other. Both 

branches sat and acted together. The gov- 
The legis- ernor presided. This form of legislative as- 
lative sembly continued to be the practise so long 

assembly ^g ^jjg colony had a separate existence. The 

assembly was called, not a legislature, but a 
general court — the name which to this day clings to the 
law-making body of Massachusetts. Deputies to the gen- 
eral court were paid, not from a general fund, but by the 
towns which sent them. Under this arrangement the 
towns would be likely to see to it that the sessions of 
the legislature were not unduly prolonged. The salary was 
fixed at two shillings and sixpence a day. This was an- 
other salutary check on long sessions. For in those days 
the best men, the most far-sighted and prominent men, 
were generally chosen to office; and while they were ready 
to make sacrifices for the public good, they would not be 
likely to neglect their own affairs for the pay they were 
getting in the public service. 



VIII 

Though they yielded to practical necessity and changed 
the form of government from a pure to a representative 
democracy, the Pilgrims were exceedingly jeal- 
Jealous Qyg of their civil rights and were careful to 

of rights throw every possible safeguard about them. 
Hence, it was provided that, except in cases of 
evident emergency, proposals for enactment into laws 
should lie over for one year. There could be no " snap '* 
legislation, and no " omnibus bills," adroitly concealing all 
sorts of schemes and jobs, and brought in at the last 
moment and hurried through under suspension of the rules, 
to vex and humiliate the people. Even when a law had 
been passed there was a court of appeal to which it might 
be taken, and not only negatived but actually repealed. 

For in addition to this legislative assembly there was a 
popular assembly of the freemen of the colony in which 



THE PILGRIMS 375 

final authority was lodged. This was called the " Court 
of Election." The governor, the assistants, the treasurer, 
and, after the act of confederation, the colonial 
People commissioners, were elected by this assembly, 

retain veto j^ i\^{g respect, the change to a representative 
power government made no difference. The gov- 

ernor and assistants had always been chosen 
by popular vote. At the outset, in the Bay colony the 
people elected the assistants, the assistants appointed the 
governor, and the governor and assistants made the laws. 
After no long time this plan was given up, and the people 
chose the executive officers. In Plymouth things started 
in this way. The people ruled. This assembly of freemen, 
moreover, had power to repeal any law which the general 
court had passed. Under God, and against all claims of 
superiority by anybody, the rights of the people were held 
to be sacred and supreme. 

IX 

Frequent references have been made In this narrative 
to freemen, and the rights and duties of freemen. Who 

then were freemen, and how did men become 
Freemen freemen.'' At the outset, those who signed the 

compact in the Mayflower were freemen. Sub- 
sequently men were made freemen by a majority vote of 
those who were already freemen. But, beginning in 1656, 
and making modifications from time to time for a dozen 
years or more, the legislative body added greatly to the 
strictness of the conditions on which one might join the 
ranks of freemen. A man had to have local indorsement, 
or the approval of the particular town in which he resided, 
before he could be advanced to this high privilege. 



At the end of the period just indicated, however, and as 
the result of more than a decade of discussion and experi- 
ence, it was settled that, in order to exercise the rights 
and enjoy the advantages of a freeman, one " must be 



376 THE PILGRIMS 

twenty-one years of age, of sober and peaceable conver- 
sation, orthodox in the fundamentals of religion, and 
possessed of twenty pounds of ratable estate 
Voting a [^ the Colony." In addition to this, by a 
sacred trust j^w dating back to 1636, every freeman had 
to take an oath to be loyal to the king and to 
all the interests of their little state. Citizenship was made 
to stand for thoughtfulness, thrift, character. One of the 
severe punislmients inflicted on a man for misbehaWor was 
disfrancliisement. Voting was held to be both a duty and 
a dignity. Like filling an office, it was invested with a 
large measure of sacredness. 

By these stringent regulations some men were excluded 
from the rights and privileges of the elective franchise who 
ought not to have been excluded. Rehgious tests are not 
good; but moral tests are good. A jealous guardianship 
of the ballot-box is wise. It would be vastly better for our 
republic if good men were compelled to vote, and bad men 
were excluded from the polls. 

This is not all. The Pilgrims not only safeguarded the 
elective franchise by making the voting standard high, but 
they emphasized their sense of the importance 
Penalties ^f civic interests and the faithful discharge of 
for failing civic duties, by making the failure to vote on 
to vote tj^g part of those to whom the privilege be- 

longed an offense punishable by fine. A fine of 
three sliillings was imposed on freemen for failing to attend 
the general court when state officials were to be chosen. 
Inasmuch as " age, disability of body, and other incon- 
veniences " might hinder the attendance of some who were 
worthy citizens and had a right to vote, an act was passed 
permitting voting by proxy. Admission to the lists of 
freemen was so carefully guarded that there was Httle 
danger of the abuse of the privilege. It would, however, 
work strange confusion and be the source of boundless 
corruption if adopted in these times. This idea, that all 
who had the right to vote should discharge the duties im- 
pHed in the right, was carried so far, that, in 1646, it was 
enacted that towns neglecting to send deputies to the 
general court should be fined two pounds. 



THE PILGRIMS 377 



XI 

It is not apparent from the record whether the Old 
Colony in its indcjjcndcnt colonial day.s was afflicted with 
any considerable number of office-seekers — 
Fines for though it would be very strange if there were 
refusing to j^q^ some; but it is evident that it was not 
hold office always easy to get the best men to assume the 
responsibilities and bear the burdens of public 
officials. As early as 1632, a man elected to the office of 
governor and declining to serve was made liable to a fine 
of twenty pounds. The penalty for refusing to serve as 
assistant was ten pounds. One elected to the office of a 
selectman of the town must discharge the duties of the 
position or pay a penalty. We have just seen that towns 
neglecting to send deputies to the general court were sub- 
ject to fines. So persons chosen by any town to the office 
of deputy, and neglecting, without adequate reason, to 
appear and discharge the duties of the office were mulcted 
in the sum of twenty shillings. 

All this reads strangely in our day — strangely indeed, 
when we recall how many men there are who are willing to 
pay fabulous amounts to secure an office; and how many 
men there are, too, who are so intent on voting that they 
are ready to go the rounds of the polling-places at every 
election ! But it is more than likely that, if, in the very 
region which was hallowed by the tread of the Pilgrims, 
an effort were made to get all the good men to vote when 
there are elections, and all the best men to consent to fill 
offices of public trust whenever their fellow citizens might 
deem it wise to designate them for these places, the result 
would be a fresh demonstration of the difficulty of keeping 
the public spirit in any community up to a high level, and 
inducing the most efficient and worthy members of the 
community to forego their own ease and gain for the 
general welfare. 

In subsequent chapters there will be occasion to notice 
other statutes which were passed by the Pilgrims, as well 
as an opportunity to make further study of the spirit and 



378 THE PILGRIMS 

purpose of these people as reflected in their legislation. 
Enough has been said to show the general trend of their 
thought and at what they aimed in enacting and admin- 
istering their laws. They sought to realize order, purity, 
and justice. They wanted their little state to stand for 
the utmost freedom to do right, and for the greatest pos- 
sible hindrance to doing wrong. They made an honest 
attempt to articulate the will of God in their rules and regu- 
lations, and to order all their affairs in a way to meet the 
divine approbation. 

xn 

It needs to be steadily borne in mind, however, that the 
laws of the Pilgrims were growths. They had a few funda- 
mental principles ; but they had no ready-made 
Laws were system of statutes. Their legislation fol- 
growths lowed their needs and was designed to meet the 
exigencies of the hour. Their laws are the 
way-marks of their progress, and show how the little state 
suited itself to new times and conditions. The advance was 
sometimes slow ; and sometimes it was by leaps and bounds. 
At length, as we have seen, they had their code, their full 
equipment of officials with well-defined powers and duties, 
and policies and plans to match the situation. Starting 
with the idea of loyalty to God, and building on the founda- 
tion of equal rights, they watched events and did their best 
to make a model state. 



XVIII 
WITCHES AND QUAKERS 



For many centuries it was universally believed, that the continued ex- 
istence of witchcraft formed an integral part of the teaching of the Church, 
and that the persecution that raged through Eiu-ope was supported by the 
whole stress of her infaUibihty. . . . On this ground the Reformers had no 
conflict with their opponents. The credulity which Luther manifested on all 
matters connected with diabolical intervention was amazing even for his age ; 
and, when speaking of witchcraft, his language was emphatic and unhesita- 
ting. ' I would have no compassion on these witches,' he exclaimed, ' I 
would burn them all.' — W. E. H. Lecky. 

The foimders of new sects, and their earliest disciples, whose tome of 
thought is in a habitual state of passionate elevation, and whose aims and 
objects are usually idealized by the glowing atmosphere of an ardent imagina- 
tion, are not infrequently characterized by a zeal highly disproportioned to 
the wisdom which is necessary to regulate and control the same. 

John Stetson Babht. 

Let us remember — 

That unto all men Charity is due; 

Give what we ask ; and pity, while we blame, 

Lest we become copartners in the shame. 

Lest we condemn, and yet ourselves partake, 

And persecute the dead for conscience' sake. 

Henby W. Longfellow. 



XVIII 

WITCHES AND QUAKERS 

IN the course of the years the Pilgrims were forced into 
many trying situations. They had to encounter a 
large number of difficult and delicate questions. Their 
good sense and their humanity were often put to the 
test; and the strain upon their wisdom was sometimes in- 
tense. Amongst the most perplexing of their problems was 
how to deal with witches and Quakers. Both of these prob- 
lems were upon them. They had made witchcraft a crime 
punishable with death. Quakerism had suddenly appeared 
to annoy and derange. What should be done with Quakers? 
They realized at the time how much the peace and har- 
mony of the colony depended on the wisdom with which 
these troublesome issues should be met. They could not have 
reaUzed how seriously a few mistakes made by overzeal 
in warding off the harm threatened by these subtle foes of 
order — as they regarded them — would mar their fame 
in years to come. 



At the date of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth 
Rock, as earher and later, belief in witchcraft was well-nigh 

universal. In Italy and the German states. 
Belief in j^ Switzerland, Sweden, Scotland, and Eng- 
witchcraft land, the authorities were busy burning witches, 
universal Catholics and Protestants, men eminent for 

learning and of exalted position, as well as the 
ignorant and lowly, were alike involved in the fatal delu- 
sion. Persons suspected of this " craft, invented by the 
devil " were subjected to the most horrible tortures to induce 
them to confess. If they confessed that they were in league 



382 THE PILGRIMS 

with the powers of darkness, they sometimes escaped, though 
more frequently confession was considered enough, and the 
poor creatures were hurried away to slaughter. If they did 
not confess, this was taken to be sufficient evidence of guilt 
and their condemnation and execution followed. Trumbull 
quotes this statement from Mackey's " Popular Delusions " : 
" During the whole of James' reign, amid the civil wars of 
his successors, the sway of the long parliament, and the 
reign of Charles II, there was no abatement of the persecu- 
tion." Inside of the hundred years before the Pilgrims left 
Scrooby, " Continental Europe sacrificed one hundred 
thousand lives on this ground." A thousand a year, for a 
whole century, laid on the altar of this strange and horrible 
delusion ! 

At the very time when the Pilgrims were framing their 
laws, England and Scotland were burning and hanging 
witches. The sickening business was kept up in Great 
Britain until more than a hundred years after the Ply- 
mouth settlement was begun, and there was an execution 
in Germany as late as the French Revolution. In a charge 
made to a jury when two women were on trial for witch- 
craft, Sir Matthew Hale said that " he did not in the least 
doubt there were witches." A century later Lord Mans- 
field, though hberal, if not in his politics, yet in his religious 
views, held to the same opinion. Palfrey well says : " It 
was not to be expected of the Colonists of New England that 
they should be first to see through a delusion which had 
befooled the whole civilized world and the greatest and most 
knowing persons in it." The marvel is that the colonists 
were so little affected by the raging distemper. 

As has been stated, witchcraft was made one of the six 
capital crimes named in the Plymouth laws of 1636. In 
this respect, it is worth while to remember, the colony was 
not unlike the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, 
Rhode Island, Manhattan, Virginia, Maryland, and Penn- 
sylvania. But it was conspicuously unhke some — not all 
— but some of the others in two particulars — a remark- 
able scarcity of witches within its bounds, and a decided 
indisposition on the part of the authorities to convict 
persons charged with this crime. 



THE PILGRIMS 383 



n 

From first to last there were only two cases brought to 
trial. One of these occurred in 1661. A woman in Scituate, 

by the name of Sylvester, affirmed that another 
Only two woman, by the name of Holmes, had become a 
cases witch. She had seen her talking with the devil 

in the form of a wild animal. The accuser was 
prosecuted for slander, and found guilty, and in way of 
amends for the wrong done she had not only to pay costs, 
but to confess that she had lied. The second case occurred 
six years later in the same town. A Mrs. Ingham was 
charged with bewitching Meliitabel Woodworth. Trial 
followed. The woman was acquitted. In the single trial for 
witchcraft which took place in Pennsylvania, and which 
was nearly twenty years after these two trials at Plymouth, 
the jury brought in this verdict: " The prisoner is guilty 
of the common fame of being a witch, but not guilty as she 
stands indicted." It was in this spirit that the Pilgrims 
had given their decisions. 

Thus the Pilgrims, having fallen in with the delusion 
of their age in expressing their belief in witchcraft and 

making it a capital offense in their laws, es- 
No witch caped the reproach of after years by refusing 
executed to credit the " vulgar tales » and " diseased 

imaginations " of a couple of indiscreet and un- 
scrupulous gossips. No judicial murders of this sort are 
to be laid to their charge. The two trials just in mind 
were after his day, but it is a remarkable fact, noted by 
Goodwin, that Bradford nowhere refers to witchcraft. 
It had but small place in the thought of the Plymouth 
colonists. 



Ill 

Amongst the most intelhgent, industrious, orderly, self- 
controlled, philanthropic, and in every way exemplary 
people in our modern time are the Friends. It seems in- 



384 THE PILGRIMS 

credible that there should ever have been anybody identified 
with them in their faith and habits who was not kindly dis- 
posed, peaceable, discreet in conduct, and, while 
Trouble f^j-j^ [^ opinion, conciliatory in manner. George 

with the Fox, the son of a weaver, and the apprentice 
Quakers pf ^ shoemaker, had a message to the world. 

When this message is interpreted to us through 
the career and services of Penn, or the sweet and conse- 
crated hfe of Woolman, memorable for his " Journal," or 
the brain and heart and spotless character of Whittier, 
we bow and gratefully acknowledge its genuineness and 
power. 

But in the ranks of the earlier followers of the founder 
of the Society of Friends there were not a few who sug- 
gest present-day adherents of the organiza- 
Wild en- £Jqjj only by contrast. The great poet just 
thusiasts named, who is held in honor by all and tenderly 
loved both for his poetry and his manhood, has 
said that " the extravagance of some of the early Quakers 
has been grossly exaggerated." No doubt. But even he, 
though charging it to " persecution and the denial of the 
rights of conscience and worship," freely admits " that many 
of them manifested a good deal of wild enthusiasm." This 
" wild enthusiasm," however, is but a tame expression of 
the facts. They were fanatical, turbulent, often indecent ; 
and the inward voice which spoke to them became in too 
many instances, as they gave it articulation, a boisterous 
demonstration of harsh and bitter words. 



IV 

The Pilgrims were naturally alarmed at the approach of 
these intruders. They had sought peace and they wanted to 

live in peace. At great cost of time and labor 
^^^y they had cleared their lands, built their homes, 

alarmed g^^ ^p their institutions, and formulated their 

poHcies ; and they did not see why they should 
be disturbed. If these apostles of a new faith had come to 
seek shelter from oppression, to cast in their lot with them 



THE PILGRIMS 385 

and be loyal citizens of their little state, or even to talk 
over in a calm and rational way the great questions which 
were agitating their minds, they would have had a hearty 
welcome, no doubt, and an equal chance with those who had 
come before to work out their destiny. But to come as 
prophets of the Lord without any distinct credentials in 
their message, or in their conduct, to show that they had 
been sent of the Lord, was another thing. The colonists 
dreaded confusion and overturning. They had had experi- 
ence of Lyford and his mischievous intrigues ; and of 
Gorton with what another had termed his " riotous and 
turbulent conduct ; " and they had no relish for further 
troubles of this sort. Precisely this is the reason alleged in 
defense of their legislation against the Quakers. From all 
they could learn of them, their " doctrines and practises 
manifestly tended to the subversion of the fundamentals of 
the Christian religion, church order and the civil peace of 
the government." Apprehensions like these gave to the 
outlook a serious aspect, and whether well founded or not, 
prudent men entertaining them could hardly have been ex- 
pected to stand by and do nothing. This does not justify 
a harsh and blind intolerance. It does not defend the wis- 
dom of some of the measures taken by the colony against 
the vexation and harm threatened by the presence of these 
zealots. But the attitude assumed by them goes far towards 
throwing the complainants out of court. 



The first law enacted against the Quakers in Plymouth 
was in 1657. This law, like the more severe one which 
followed it, was not a direct but an indirect 
First Law blow at the offenders. It was an act forbidding 
against ^}^g bringing of Quakers into the colony by 

Quakers anybody on pain of a fine of twenty shillings a 

week for every week the prohibited person re- 
mained within the jurisdiction of the colony. 

It deserves to be remembered, not in justification of the 
Pilgrims, but in mitigation of a harsh judgment of them, 

25 



386 THE PILGRIMS 

that they were " put up " to this action by the Bay people. 
It was " the godly care and zeal of the gentlemen of Massa- 
chusetts," not only for a revival of religious 
Urged to interests and the reinforcement of a decUn- 
action by [^g ministry in the Plymouth colony, but for 
Bay the barring out and extermination of " such 

colony pests " as were now coming in upon them in 

the guise of these " ranters," which led to these 
enactments. 

These are the circumstances. A year before the passage 
of the law just mentioned, the general court of the Bay 
colony sent a communication to the commissioners of the 
four colonies which had become confederated, in which they 
were informed of the arrival at Boston of " several persons 
professing themselves Quakers," whom they regarded as 
" fit instruments to propagate the kingdom of Satan." 
This communication was sent to the commissioners to induce 
them in their official capacity to recommend to the general 
courts of each of the colonies the adoption of " some 
general rules," to prevent the coming in amongst them of 
these " notorious heretics." The commissioners fell in with 
the suggestion and definitely proposed " to the several 
General Courts that all Quakers, ranters, and other notori- 
ous heretics be prohibited coming into the United Colo- 
nies." It was further urged that if these proscribed parties 
should " hereafter come or rise among them," they should 
be " forthwith secured and removed out of all jurisdic- 
tions." This session of the commissioners was held at 
Plymouth, and the action was no doubt taken with the 
special intent of influencing the general court of the 
Plymouth colony. 

This first law, which was passed under the inspiration 
and urging just indicated, did not prove so effective as was 
thought desirable. A subsequent law was 
A second therefore enacted with added prohibitions and 
law passed increased penalties. It was made a crime, not 
only to bring Quakers into the colony, but 
knowingly to harbor them after they had come. The fine 
for this offense was five pounds or a whipping. In 1658 a 
law was passed disfranchising Quakers. Moreover, as they 



THE PILGRIMS 387 

were wandering up and down the land without any lawful 
calling, a house of correction was built, in which, under 
charge of vagabondage, they might be locked up and set to 
work. Executive officers were authorized " to seize all 
books and writings in which the doctrines and creeds of 
the Quakers were contained." There was no abatement 
of the disorder. These drastic remedies did not cure the 
disease. 



VI 

Instead of halting in their course and giving the subject 
the benefit of a sober second thought, the authorities 

pushed straight on and added measure to 
Further measure, each succeeding one having in it a 

enactments little sharper sting of reproach and carrying a 

little heavier burden of penalty than the pre- 
ceding one, until in 1659 the court decreed that in certain 
contingencies of persistent disobedience to laws which had 
been passed the offenders should be put to death. Thus 
the Pilgrims fell into line with the sentiment and practise 
in the mother country, in the Bay colony, in New York 
and Virginia, and undertook to extinguish fanaticism by 
adding fuel to the flames. Governor Arnold, of Rhode 
Island, said of these mad enthusiasts that " they delight 
to be persecuted by the civil power." Severity is lost on 
such people. 

vn 

The intrusion of the Quakers upon the Pilgrims began 
in 1657. In the course of that year Nicholas Upsall, Hum- 
phrey Norton and John Rouse visited Ply- 
First in- mouth, began their agitation, and brought the 
stance of question of what to do with them to a square 
punish- issue. Upsall arrived first, and in no long time 

ment ^a,s taken back to Rhode Island whence he came. 

Norton next appeared on the scene. He was 
accorded the same treatment and promptly bundled over 



388 THE PILGRIMS 

the border into the more hospitable realm of Roger 
Williams. 

Norton, however, unlike Upsall, seems either to have 
renewed his zeal, or nursed his wrath, or both ; for the next 

year found him back among the Pilgrims 
Norton and ^nd ready to do battle for his cause. Rouse 
Rouse ^as with him. The two were a valiant pair, 

and not without ability of a certain sort as 
well as the courage of their convictions. They were 
arrested, put on trial, and condemned to be pubhcly 
whipped. 

The trial had some amusing as well as some aggravating 
turns. The prisoners at the bar were shrewd and auda- 
cious ; and the contempt they felt for the court was not 
left to be laboriously inferred. One of the little franknesses 
in which Norton frequently indulged while undergoing 
examination v/as to say to the governor : " Thou lyest." 
He openly charged this high official with being a " mali- 
cious man," and having " a clamorous tongue," and he 
more than intimated that he used this unruly member like 
" a scolding woman." Hard pressed, the defendants fell 
back on their rights as Englishmen and denied the jurisdic- 
tion of the court. In this claim, the two disturbers of the 
peace overreached themselves and the authorities were quick 
to take advantage of the situation. If Enghshmen, they 
might be required to take the oath of loyalty to England. 
This duty was pressed upon them. They refused either to 
take the oath or make affirmation. On the ground of this 
refusal, so it appears, the men were convicted and forced to 
submit to the public whipping previously mentioned. They 
left the colony and gave it no more trouble by their per- 
sonal presence. 

The two having departed from Plymouth under a com- 
pulsion which they felt bound to respect, it occurred to 
Norton that there was a way still open to him 
Norton's ^y which he might effectually torment his perse- 
revenge cutors. He would entertain them with an ex- 
hilarating dose of absent treatment. He acted 
on this suggestion and wrote back two letters, one to Gover- 
nor Prence and the other to Alden. For sharpness, these 



THE PILGRIMS 389 

letters would have done credit to Junius, and for impatient 
and spiteful vituperation they would have given points to 
Cahban. This was the end of vexation from Norton. 

VIII 

Undeterred by the treatment measured out to the apos- 
tles of this new faith, other disciples of Fox followed those 
already named in a missionary invasion of the 
Other in- Qld Colony. Two men, by the name of Braind 
stances ^nd Copeland, felt called to dehver a message to 

the Pilgrims in 1658. Their stay in the com- 
munity was short ; for they insulted the magistrates, and 
were straightway ordered out of the jurisdiction of the gov- 
ernment. They obeyed; but inside of a week they were 
back again — only to be whipped and sent off once more. 
Two others, Leddra and Pierson, tried to convince the col- 
onists of the error of their ways. They were locked up and 
kept in jail till they were ready to cry quits. Wenlock 
Christison, a zealous advocate of the inner light, evidently 
had a good deal of the spirit and pluck of Norton. He 
came ; but was persuaded to retire. He came a second time ; 
and it was not long before he was dealing out his judgments 
right and left. He was taken in hand and punished with the 
painful and humiliating device of " head and heels." 

The next year there was a band of six persons who came 
to Plymouth. These were headed by Lawrence and 
Cassandra Southwick. They had been driven 
The South- away from the Bay colony, and had sought, 
wicks jjQ^ g^ refuge, but a sphere in which to bear 

testimony within the domain of the Pilgrims. 
They were given four weeks in which to pick up and be off. 
If they did not comply with the order, they were reminded 
that by a recent act of the law-making power the penalty 
of death might be inflicted upon them. It was no longer 
the jail, the whipping-post, and the " head and heels " which 
these wild enthusiasts had to fear, but death. To this sad 
pass had the business come. 

One of the names about which sad memories gather in 
connection with the fanaticism and folly of those old days is 



390 THE PILGRIMS 

Mary Dyer. She found her way to Plymouth the same 
year in which the Southwicks and their four associates 

made their appearance in the place. She was 
Mary restored to her husband in Rhode Island. 

Dyer Thomas Greenleaf, who had brought her, was 

forced to pay the costs. Later, both Mrs. 
Dyer and Leddra — two of those whose names appear in 
the narrative — were " hanged from the great elm on Boston 
Common." 

IX 

It is an intense satisfaction to add that, while the Ply- 
mouth people were unduly alarmed, and unwise and unjust 
in their treatment of a few propagandists who 
No Quaker }^ad zeal not according to knowledge, they never 
put to reached the fatal point of judicially dismissing 

death ^ Quaker into the next world. Smarting under 

the contempt which these evangehsts of the 
inner light threw upon their officials and laws, naturally 
sharing the fear of the time as to the effect which such 
teaching and conduct would have upon their religious and 
civil institutions, and exasperated into a legislative threat 
of death to these men and women if nothing short of this 
would arrest them in their career of disturbance, they yet 
stopped short of the extremity of hanging. They whipped 
and tortured and ostracized them ; but they did not take 
life. No blood of a martyr for opinion's sake, nor for un- 
wise devotion to religious conviction, stains Plymouth Rock. 



The madness and folly could not last always. They 
were suddenly arrested. For once, the interposition of regal 

authority was in the interest of humanity. 
Stopped Friends on the other side of the water appealed 

by the Iq Charles II on behalf of their persecuted 

^^S brethren in America, and he, in the exercise of 

his kingly prerogatives, called a halt on these 
cruel and foolish proceedings. In a communication ad- 



THE PILGRIMS 391 

dressed to each and all of the governors of New England the 
" Merry Monarch " stole time enough from his pleasures to 
say that there must be no more persecutions and no more 
hangings of " those people called Quakers ; " but that all 
cases in which they were involved must be transferred to 
England for trial and final disposition. This opened the 
prison doors and let the oppressed go free. It was a good 
stroke by a bad sovereign. 

Tlie end of the controversy came none too soon for the 
welfare and peace of the Plymouth colony. The Old Col- 
ony never suffered so much from this Quaker 
End none agitation as the Bay colony; but it was 
too soon greatly disturbed. The question got into pol- 
itics and made party divisions. Men who be- 
lieved that the authorities were going too far were shoved 
into the background, and the more headstrong were pushed 
to the front. The struggle was fast assuming an aspect of 
personal bitterness and factional rivalry. Had it continued 
there would have been lasting alienation. As it was, Isaac 
Robinson, the son of the ever-to-be-remembered John Rob- 
inson, and the Rowlands, and others of the prominent men 
who hfted their hands against these harsh measures, were 
discredited, and had to wait until the storm had passed 
before they could be reinstated in the public favor. The 
situation was one from which it was well to escape at almost 
any price. 



XIX 

CONFEDERATION OF THE COLONIES 



In the origin and development, the strengthening and the triiunph, of 
those agencies which transferred from the Old World to the New the trial of 
fresh ideas and the experiment with free institutions, the Colonists of New 
England had the leadmg part. The influence and the institutions which 
have gone forth from them have had a prevailing sway in the northern half 
of this Continent. — George Edward Ellis. 

The Colonies, three thousand miles distant from England, leagued to- 
gether for mutual defense ; and their Amphictyonic Council was as valuable 
and as important to them, as the greater Confederacies of the Old World, 
which the most loyal historians have applauded and approved. 

John Stetson Barry. 

It was not only domestic, but foreign enemies that induced this Con- 
federation, which may well be called the embryo of the Constitution of the 
United States. — Sewell Harding. 



XIX 

CONFEDERATION OF THE COLONIES 

AT this point it is necessary to return to an earlier stage 
in the history of the Pilgrims than that which has 
just now been under review. In 1643, an important 
milestone was reached, and a new and significant chapter 
was opened in the progress of the Plymouth colony. 



Massachusetts Bay, the colony of the Pilgrims, and the 
colonies of Connecticut and New Haven, entered into a 
confederation. The name given to the organ- 
Confedera- ization was The United Colonies of New Eng- 
tion of the land. At that time the Plymouth colony 
colonies numbered about three thousand inhabitants. 

Massachusetts had five times as many. Con- 
necticut had about the same number as Plymouth ; and New 
Haven five hundred less. There were eight towns in the Old 
Colony. 

The leaders in the movement had three main objects in 
view in bringing about this union. One was that there 
might be a prompt and satisfying way of adjusting dis- 
putes over boundaries, and amicably settling such other 
differences as might arise between the parties concerned. 
Another was the promotion of their mutual interests by en- 
couraging each other in " preserving and propagating the 
truths and liberties of the gospel." It was a " cosociation 
for mutual help and strength ; " and they hoped by means 
of it to increase their chances of " advancing the Kingdom 



396 THE PILGRIMS 

of Jesus Christ." How the underiying concern of these 
men — Pilgrims and Puritans alike — for the deep things 
of God and the soul crops out at every turn! Still an- 
other, the most obvious and commending, was the common 
defense. 

Five years before the date just named a serious effort 
had been made to establish a league of this sort; but the 
time had not come when all could see eye to eye, and realize 
the importance of standing together in an alliance which, 
in emergencies, would make each a vital part of the whole, 
and the whole much more weighty and efficient. 

At the date first mentioned, however, 1643, and after 
much agitation of the question, public opinion was ripe for 
the advance step. Concert of plan and action had become 
a necessity. Indian matters in particular were assuming 
grave and threatening aspects and awakening most serious 
apprehensions. The disturbed condition of things in Eng- 
land greatly increased the peril from this source. If revo- 
lution was to be inaugurated, if the home government was 
to be overturned, if the authorities were to be obliged to de- 
vote all their attention to securing or holding their places, 
there would be small chance of receiving help from over 
the seas in case savage plots were hatched and massacres 
were attempted. With jealous nations alert, and rival 
colonies of other speech and faith ready to act on hints 
from intriguing politicians, wily chiefs of the forest tribes 
would be promptly apprised of the situation, and know well 
when and where to strike their deadly blows. So it was 
feared; and this fear became a spur to union. 

Still, while this was a ground of alarm and a reason for 
coming together, there was to be no wanton aggression on 
the Indians. The ninth article of the terms of union was 
carefully drawn, and made as clear and strong as possible, 
with the specific end in view of preventing any one of the 
colonies from acting on its own responsibility, either in 
resisting threatened attacks, or making assaults, or in 
avenging wrongs done by the Indians. They were to re- 
ceive kindness and open-handed justice. 



THE PILGRIMS 897 



II 

The basis of the union was the political equality of the 
colonies, and the right of each to be represented by two 

delegates in the conferences. These delegates, 
The basis qj. representatives from the colonies, were called 
of union commissioners. Under the provisions of the 

union there could be only eight of them at 
most; but they constituted a legislative assembly. They 
were a federal congress. One of its own number was to be 
chosen to preside over the deliberations of the body ; though 
the president's vote on any measure up for adoption counted 
no more than the vote of any other member. On questions 
of peace and war it required, save in " sudden exegencies," 
six votes to pass a motion and make it binding. If propo- 
sitions of weight were presented which could not command 
the six votes needed for their adoption, they were referred 
to the general court of the several colonies. The appor- 
tionment of forces and the meeting of expenses in case of 
war were to be according to the numbers and financial 
strength of the several colonies. Massachusetts, for in- 
stance, was to furnish men in the ratio of one hundred to 
forty-five for each of the other jurisdictions. This pro- 
portion, however, which was so fixed in one of the articles 
of the compact under which the confederation had been 
formed, was altered at the first session of the commissioners, 
and Massachusetts was set down for one hundred and fifty, 
Plymouth and Connecticut for thirty each, while New 
Haven was required to raise only twenty-five. This shows 
what forward strides the Bay colony was making in those 
early years. The meetings of the commissioners were to be 
held once a year — though when occasion called there might 
be emergency meetings — and in each of the colonies in 
turn. The best men were sent to this little congress. John 
Winthrop was the first president in a line of presidents 
which would have done honor to any legislative body in 
the world. Bradford was four times elected a commissioner; 
and he was twice chosen to preside. The men, however, 
who were most frequently sent to represent Plymouth, while 



398 THE PILGRIMS 

the colonies were acting under the first articles of union, 
were Thomas Prince, John Brown, Josiah Winslow, and 
Thomas Southworth. 



Ill 

In 1662, through the influence of John Winthrop, 
the younger, a charter of remarkably liberal provisions 
was obtained from Charles II, for Connecti- 
New arti- ^ut. This charter was found to cover New 
cles of Haven. Three years later, after not a Httle 

union bitter controversy and much against the will 

of many of the leading citizens, the colony of 
Davenport and Eaton became merged in that of Haynes 
and Hooker. This reduced the colonies which were in the 
confederation from four to three, and called for a recon- 
struction of the articles of union. It took many con- 
ferences and a number of years to bring this about ; but in 
1672 the revised articles were ratified and the confederacy 
set out anew. 

The important changes were that henceforth it would re- 
quire five out of six, instead of six out of eight, of the com- 
missioners to make an action binding ; the meetings were to 
be not annual but triennial — though provision was made 
for calling and holding extraordinary meetings when occa- 
sion demanded; wars were not to be undertaken except by 
authorization of the general courts of the several colonies ; 
men were to be raised for the common defense, and expenses 
met for military operations, on the basis of a new apportion- 
ment by which Massachusetts was to contribute in the ratio 
of one hundred to sixty for Connecticut and thirty for Ply- 
mouth. There were other alterations ; but these were the 
main ones. It was under this second constitution that the 
colonies lived and carried on their joint operations, until 
Plymouth was finally annexed to Massachusetts and became 
extinct as an independent jurisdiction. 



THE PILGRIMS 399 



IV 

What did the confederacy do for the Plymouth colony? 
There are several answers to this question. In a general 

way it may be said that it did for the Plymouth 
Value of colony just what was expected of it when the 
union to confederacy was formed. It gave new heart 
Plymouth ^nd new hope to the people. It removed the 

sense of isolation which had sometimes been so 
weakening and oppressive. It imparted the confidence which 
it derived from an increase In the numbers of those who 
have interests in common and are moved by a common spirit 
and purpose. It increased the resources, both of strength 
and wisdom, available in case of contest. To a single strand 
three strands were added ; and It made a cord which, to say 
the least, could not be so easily broken. It was a tie that 
bound In a wider fellowship. It was a rift in the clouds of a 
threatening sky. 



But, In addition to a general service of this kind, it ren- 
dered specific services of great worth along the lines had 

in view when the confederacy was formed. To 
Settled cite a single Instance, It may be said that title 

claims to ^^ ^-j^^ ownership and jurisdiction over a tract 
disputed of country lying on the border between the 
territory Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies was 

satisfactorily adjusted and the boundaries 
definitely fixed. For a number of years, beginning with 
1640, Seekonk, a portion of which is now known as Reho- 
both, was a bone of contention between the two colonies. 
The Bay colony claimed it, apparently because she wanted 
it ; and the Old Colony asserted her right to It in virtue of 
some sort of patent. So long as the colonies remained 
separate, there was no way of dealing with the question in 
dispute except for each to state Its position and urge its 
claims, and there leave the matter. The confederacy fur- 
nished a court of appeal, and cases could there be pushed 
to a finish. Precisely that Is what was done in this in- 



400 THE PILGRIMS 

stance. The facts were laid before the commissioners, and 
the claims of each side were presented ; then those members 
of the commission who were not parties to the controversy, 
and to whom the case was referred for decision, made answer 
in favor of Plymouth. Thus a long and irritating conten- 
tion was brought to an amicable conclusion. There were 
other differences of like nature in which the other colonies 
were concerned and which were brought to happy adjust- 
ments by the board of commissioners ; but this instance is 
mentioned because it had to do with Plymouth, and answers 
our questions by showing how the peace and welfare of 
Plymouth were promoted by the confederacy. 

For another instance and in another sphere it may be 
said that the Pilgrims were encouraged to take a freshened 
interest in education, and to put more zeal into 
Encouraged ^}^g support of ministers and churches, in con- 
to sustain sequence of influences brought to bear on them 
schools and through the confederacy. 

churches When the confederacy was set up the Ply- 

mouth colony had been in existence for more 
than twenty years. While the fires of devotion to high 
ideals still burned upon the altar, it is not strange that there 
was a little less heat and glow in the flame than in the 
earlier times. The struggle to gain a permanent footing 
in the land had been a hard and wearisome one. New set- 
tlers were coming in upon them ; but some of them were on 
the ground simply for gain, and so far as the higher in- 
terests of the colony were concerned they were rather a 
hindrance than a help. Elder Brewster, always an appre- 
ciable and unfailing moral and spiritual force in the com- 
munity, was near the end of his beneficent career. Without 
any marked degeneracy of the people, though the outlook 
was somewhat alarming to Bradford; and without any 
decided lowering of the tone of devotion to the ends of in- 
struction and religion, it was only natural for enthusiastic 
outsiders to feel that the time had come when a Uttle wise 
counsel and encouragement would do the colony good, and 
for the colony to feel that it needed just this kind of whole- 
some stimulation. In this spirit counsel was given and 
received. There was no patronizing intrusion, and there 



THE PILGRIMS 401 

was no irritation. Everything was in good temper; and 
the moral hfe of the colony was helped by this association 
with other members of the confederacy and the suggestions 
which reached the colony through the confederacy. 

It was through the urgent recommendation of the com- 
missioners that Nathaniel Morton was encouraged to write 
his " New England's Memorial." Though this is far from 
being a full and perfect account of things in the colony for 
the first forty years and more, it is yet invaluable. 

The Plymouth people had their vision enlarged and their 
interest in the training of youth increased by the appeals 
which reached them through the confederacy in behalf of 
the little college at Cambridge. The help sought was small, 
but it was given ; and the effect was, not only to aid a 
young and struggling institution, but to stimulate inter- 
est in their own schools. The determination and energy 
with which Massachusetts resisted assaults on religion, or 
the views and statements and customs which her rulers iden- 
tified with rehgion, were not always wise, nor was the 
counsel which she pressed on her sister colonies always the 
best; but Plymouth felt the impulse imparted by Massa- 
chusetts, and the purpose of the Pilgrims to foster sound 
learning was intensified, and their zeal in maintaining the 
truth, in supporting churches, and in strengthening the 
hands of the ministers, was very much quickened. In some 
instances harm was done by this outside urgency ; but the 
good was more than the harm, and the good was abiding. 
Plymouth gave ; but she also received ; and the people of the 
Old Colony were wider-visioned and more earnest in their 
loyalty to truth and duty because of the ideas and influences 
which reached them through the channels of the confederacy. 

Important, however, as the confederacy was to Ply- 
mouth in other particulars, it was indispensable in the hard 
and bitter conflict with Philip. The war had 
Indispensa- ^q Jq primarily with the Plymouth colony, 
ble aid in Some have thought that the Plymouth colony 
war with ^^^g wholly to blame for bringing it on ; and 
Philip tjja,t a little more tact and patience on the part 

of the leaders would have prevented it alto- 
gether. Be this as it may, the other colonies were very soon 

26 



402 THE PILGRIMS 

involved in the terrific wrestle, and the fight became a fight 
for the life of them all. Had it not been for this union of 
the Pilgrim colony with the other colonies, it is difficult to 
see how the oldest settlement of the league could have main- 
tained its existence. In all human probabihty it would have 
been swept from the earth. The account of this conflict will 
appear more in detail in a later chapter. Here and now 
it is enough to say, as has just been hinted, that so far as 
can be gathered from the known facts of the case, if the 
confederacy had not been formed in 1643 and renewed at 
a subsequent date, the obituary of the Plymouth colony 
would have been written in 1675. 



VI 

In addition to the advantages just enumerated — some 
of them general, and some of them specific — which the 

confederacy conferred upon the Plymouth 
Incidental colonists, there were some benefits derived 
benefits from the union which were not nominated in 

the bond. They were incidental benefits ; but 
they were real. For the confederacy afforded opportunity 
or occasion to the Plymouth people to exhibit qualities 
which, though known to exist, could not otherwise have been 
brought out and shown so distinctly. 

For one thing the union served a purpose in making clear 
the tenacity with which the Pilgrims held to their local 

rights. They guarded their democracy with 
Great j^ jealous eye. At the outset they were watch- 

stress laid fyj ]gg^. they yield too much in the organiza- 
on local tJQj^ Qf the league. Then, as measures were 

rights introduced from time to time and discussed in 

their tiny parliament of eight commissioners, 
they were ever alert in the interest of their cherished local 
control. In the union and out of the union they had a pas- 
sion for both equal rights and local rights. 

To a large extent this is true, indeed, of all the New 
England colonies. It is true of all the groups of early 
settlers, east and west, north and south, who laid the foun- 



THE PILGRIMS 403 

dations of our Institutions ; and It remains true to this day. 
The late Senator Hoar once said to me that one of the 
reasons why the general government has been so reluctant 
to exercise its power in behalf of the disfranchised negroes 
is the traditional unwillingness there is in this country to 
override, or seem to override, local self-government. When 
it is remembered that blacks as well as whites belong to 
the locality, and, therefore, by the very terms of the state- 
ment ought to be Included in the list of those who have right 
to a share in the management of the affairs of the locaHty, 
the argument would seem to have little weight. It is pre- 
eminently local self-government which is disregarded and 
trampled in the dust by this outrage on justice. 

But the sentiment was pronounced in the Plymouth col- 
onists ; and the questions which came up in connection with 
the confederacy, and the management of affairs under the 
terms of the union, helped, not only to develop this senti- 
ment, but to make it more and more evident. It will be re- 
called that candidates for full citizenship in the colony 
had to have strong local backing before they could be made 
freemen. Acting in the larger sphere of the confederacy 
the Pilgrims still clung to this idea. When the articles of 
union had been drawn up and practically agreed upon at 
Boston in May, 1643, Edward Winslow and William Col- 
lier, the delegates from Plymouth, refused to sign them 
" for want of sufficient commission from their General 
Court." When the old confederacy was abandoned and a 
new one was formed, there was a marked drift towards less 
power in the larger organization, and more in the local 
jurisdiction. It was reserved for the Massachusetts colony, 
at one stage in the career of the confederacy, to fall back 
on the extreme doctrine of state rights ; but the Plymouth 
men, while faithful to the obligations which they had as- 
sumed in entering the union of the colonies, were never 
wanting In distrust of centralized power. 

Even in a life-and-death struggle like that between the 
colonists and Philip, the general court of Plymouth passed 
an order j)ermltting soldiers going on an expedition to 
choose their commander, and also advising commanders 
to consult their soldiers as to what should be done. Only 



404 THE PILGRIMS 

men like the Pilgrims and their successors could be led to 
victory under this sort of discipline. In cases of impor- 
tance the commissioners to the confederate conferences in- 
sisted on knowing the feelings and opinions of the general 
court before they would consent to act. With all the re- 
sources at her command Plymouth resisted absorption into 
Massachusetts. The pride of the people was wounded, of 
course ; but the chief thing was that they wanted to manage 
their own affairs and safeguard their own interests. The 
last act of the general court of the Old Colony was, in view 
of the disaster which had befallen them in losing their sepa- 
rate political existence, to appoint a day of " solemn fasting 
and humiliation." In the state of feeling which then existed 
amongst them we may be sure that the day was duly observed. 
New Haven and Plymouth — both settlements strenuous for 
self-government — had to pass through the humiliating ex- 
perience of being absorbed in another jurisdiction. 

Another one of these incidental advantages afforded by 
the confederacy to the Plymouth men was the chance it 
gave them to show the surprising ability 
Ability of which they possessed, and their capacity to 
the Ply- meet grave questions as they arose. Any one 
mouth ^}^Q reads the story will not fail to be impressed 

^®^ with the way in which they kept up their end in 

the discussions and negotiations which were 
carried on between them and their associates in the manage- 
ment of their common affairs. 

There is a prevailing notion that the successors in office 
of the earlier leaders of the Pilgrims, and the children who 
were born to them, as well as those who from time to time 
were added to their number from the outside, were greatly 
inferior to the Mayflower company in intellectual capacity 
and moral fiber. It is quite true that the first comers were a 
remarkable group. No later names in the Pilgrim line will 
ever shine with a luster to equal that which attaches to the 
names of Carver and Bradford, Brewster and Standish, 
Winslow, Alden, Hopkins, and Rowland ; but the men who 
came after them in leadership, or who sprang from their 
loins in the second and third generation, were by no means 
wanting in brains and pluck. 



THE PILGRIMS 405 

Thomas Prince, who joined the colony in 1621, having 
come over in the Fortune, but who in the earHer part of his 
career was largely overshadowed by the more conspicuous 
figures of the Mayflower; Josiah Winslow, the son of Ed- 
ward ; Thomas Hinckley, who came with his father and 
mother from England to Scituate, and ten years later re- 
moved to Barnstable, and who was the dominating influence 
at Plymouth during the closing years of the independent 
political life of the jurisdiction; and Benjamin Church, a 
Plymouth boy, bom in 1639, the military leader at a time 
when military leadership of a high order was at a premium, 
were all of them able men. Prince was governor for eigh- 
teen years. Sixteen of these years followed the death of 
Bradford and were without a break. He had his faults and 
he made mistakes ; but there was light in his brain and grip 
in his hand. He was a warm advocate of schools and 
churches, and he did what he could to foster these institu- 
tions. Winslow followed Prince, and was the chief execu- 
tive for the seven years which included the trying and 
triumphant war against Philip. Hinckley held the reins 
of power for twelve years — counting the time when Andros 
was doing all the ruling and local governors were of no 
consequence — and in his difficult position he showed both 
discretion and courage. It is enough to say of Church that 
he grasped the situation and measured up, so far as he was 
permitted to do so, to the full demands of the hour when 
the awful storm of concerted and savage wrath suddenly 
blackened the sky and broke on the devoted heads of the 
colonists. One has only to observe the attitude and actions 
of the Plymouth men during the years in which their colony 
was in the confederation to see that in good temper, in in- 
telligent comprehension of conditions, in ability to state 
a case, in pluck in standing up for their just claims, in 
diplomacy, in wilhngness to bear their fair share of the 
common burdens, and in skill and bravery in war, they 
were the peers of the representatives of the other colonies. 
One who reads the correspondence between the representa- 
tives of the Massachusetts government and those of Ply- 
mouth on the question whether the commissioners by their 
action could bind all the colonies to support an offensive 



406 THE PILGRIMS 

war, will see that in comprehension of the question at issue, 
in clearness of statement, and in cogency of reasoning, the 
Plymouth advocates had the better of it. It was much to 
the credit of Bradstreet and Dennison of the Bay colony, 
who took the rope-of-sand view of the articles of confedera- 
tion, that they yielded gracefully at last; but it is quite 
evident that they yielded because they had to do it. They 
had not only the weaker side ; but they were the weaker con- 
testants. The Plymouth statesmen stood as stiffly for local 
rights as the Massachusetts statesmen ; but for the mo- 
ment, in the crisis which was then upon them, the former 
saw more clearly than the latter that the way to preserve 
local rights was, for the time being, to surrender some 
portion of them to the wider authority of the whole com- 
munity. These after-years have seen that same question 
debated in senate chambers by the intellectual giants of the 
nation, and on many a bloody battle-field where graves and 
monuments mark the sacrifices of the strife ; but the final 
settlement had been in line with the contention of those 
humble but far-seeing representatives of the type of democ- 
racy which now dominates the nation. 

At the end of three-quarters of a century there was less 
moral enthusiasm among the people, less unity of spirit 
and purpose, more ambition, more worldliness, and more 
vice and crime ; but there was no moment in the independent 
life of the Plymouth colony when the leadership of affairs 
was not in the hands of men of abihty and character. 

VII 

There is another particular in which the Plymouth 
colony was benefited by this confederation ; but it is a par- 
ticular in which all the colonies were helped. 
Training Hence, while the mention of it has a place here, 
secured for j^ ought not to stand out by itself as if appli- 
future cable only to the Plymouth people. This union 

needs of hearts and hands prefigured and prepared 

the way for another union of hearts and hands 
which was to mean much to the dwellers in this land, and to 
the dwellers in all lands in the time to come. When the hour 



THE PILGRIMS 407 

had struck for a united front against, not an Indian chief, 
but a British sovereign, the New Englanders were ready ; 
for their ancestors had taught them how to stand together 
and work together in a cause which meant Hfe or death. 

This union was organic. It was a federal government. 
The states were small: but it was a confederacy of states. 
It was not a mere flocking together in a loose alliance of in- 
dependent sovereignties ; but an organization clothed with 
central and superior authority. As we have seen, Plymouth 
was slow to yield so much power as seemed to be necessary 
to the confederacy — though it stood up for it bravely and 
successfully when the test came; and Massachusetts drew 
back in an emergency — though it bowed gracefully to the 
inevitable when the pressure became too much to withstand. 
Breaches of the terms of the union were not tolerated. 
When one member of the compact refused to comply, the 
others asserted the right of the body to have its way. The 
union of the four colonies was prophetic of the union of 
the thirteen colonies, and it was educational. Both unions 
looked forward to a mighty union of independent states. 
However crude the arrangements, here was the clear fore- 
shadowing of e pluribus unum, and of a government where 
sovereign authority must be recognized, and whose laws no 
single state might nullify. 



XX 

THE WAR WITH PHILIP 



Philip, of Mount Hope, a high-spirited savage, of great enterprise, brav- 
ery and military genius, jealous of the constant growth of the EngUsh set- 
tlement, hating their religion, despising those of his own countrymen who 
embraced the worship and cultivated the manners of the white men, and 
feeling strong in that acquaintance with the arms of civilized warfare which 
the Indians had so extensively acquired, united the savage tribes of Massa- 
chusetts and Rhode Island in a last desperate effort to exterminate the 
Enghsh. — Leonakd Bacon. 

Scarcely any Indians were left within the New England Colonies except 
the friendly Mohegans. But this was not accompUshed until terrible havoc 
had been wrought among the Enghsh, chiefly in Massachusetts and Plymouth. 
Of ninety towns, twelve had been utterly destroyed, while more than forty 
others had been the scene of fire and massacre. More than a thousand men 
had been killed, and a great many women and children. There was a great 
war debt which it took several years to pay. — John Fiske. 



XX 

THE WAR WITH PHILIP 

FROM the time when Standish attacked the Neponsits 
at Wessagusset, and struck down the leaders and 
brought the tribe to terms, in 1624, not a drop of 
Indian blood was shed in war by the Pilgrims until the out- 
break of Philip in 1675. The troops of the colony had been 
called out in the Pequot War; but before they reached 
the scene of action the war was at an end. For a half-cen- 
tury there had been peace and the victories of peace. The 
foundations of the new state had been securely laid, general 
policies had been settled, laws suited to the situation had 
been enacted, churches and schools had been organized and 
set forward, serious obstacles had been met and overcome, 
and many of their hopes had been realized. 

At length, however, the madness of those who were to be 
destroyed prevailed ; the fury long suppressed burst forth ; 
and for more than a twelvemonth the skies were lurid with 
the flames of burning buildings ; the fields, on which so much 
hard labor had been expended, were desolated ; herds and 
flocks were stolen or killed; industry and enterprise were 
paralyzed; remote and lone settlers were driven from their 
homes ; towns and villages were kept in constant alarm, and 
the hearts of wives and mothers were wrung with anguish 
over the sudden and cruel taking-off of those whose lives 
were so dear to them and on whose strong arms they leaned 
for support. New England never knew another desolation 
like it. Hidden away in swamps and forest fastnesses, 
prowling about with stealthy tread under cover of darkness, 
were wily foes who might surprise their victims at any 
moment and smite them to their death. Fire and slaughter 



412 THE PILGRIMS 

ruled the hour and overclouded all life with gloom. No one 
can have an adequate idea of the perils to which the Pilgrim 
colonists were exposed, of the hardships which they had to 
endure, of the sacrifices which they had to make, and of the 
interruption which the outbreak brought to their progress, 
who leaves unread the story of this sharp death-grapple 
between the forces of barbarism and civilization. 



What were the causes of the war? Strictly speaking 
there were two causes — one general, and the other specific 

and personal. 
Causes of 'pjjg general cause was the conviction which 

the war took possession of the leaders on the Indian 
side that, unless the natives arose in their might 
and swept the English from the face of the earth, their own 
race was doomed. The English were increasing; the In- 
dians were diminishing. The Enghsh were 
^^® occupying more and more of the territory 

general which had once been their own; the Indians 

cause were being crowded into a comer. It mattered 

not that the Indians, for considerations satis- 
factory to themselves, had bartered away their hunting- 
grounds and set their seals to instruments that made the 
newcomers the rightful owners of a large part of the do- 
main of which they had once been sole lords — the facts were 
that they were facing extinction. It was the new against 
the old. It was the higher against the lower. It was in- 
structed minds, industry, foresight, increasing resources, 
humanity and progress against the stupid contentment 
which accepts things as they are and prefers annihilation 
to change. By yielding and coming under the influence 
of civihzation there might be a future for the aborigi- 
nes; but if they insisted on clinging to their savagery it 
must be extermination for one or the other of these races. 
The land was not wide enough for them both. So the 
leaders reasoned. So the more obstinate and warlike of the 
tribes were made to feel. 



THE PILGRIMS 413 

The specific and personal cause was Philip. It grew out 
of the overweening ambition, the intriguing and mischief- 
plotting temper, and the subtle hatred of this 
The speci- Indian chief. He wanted to avenge fancied 
fie and wrongs, to stand at the head of the New Eng- 

personal j^nd tribes, and be their leader in recovering 
cause ground lost to his race. The savage instinct 

came to the front, and he was consumed with 
the passion to have his people dip their hands in blood. 

II 

Who was Philip.'' He was a younger son of Massasoit. 
On the death of his older brother, Alexander, in 1662, he 

came into succession to the chieftaincy of the 
Philip Pokanokets. 

He was not a man to be trusted. Finding 
warrant in a statement made by Hubbard, it is frequently 
asserted in chapters devoted to the war by not a few of our 

later writers, that the hostile attitude assumed 
Not a man ]yj phiHp grew out of harsh treatment accorded 
to ^® to his brother Alexander. Elliott, in his " New 

trusted England History " rolls this as a sweet morsel 

under his tongue. But Palfrey shows conclu- 
sively that this inference is not warranted. Neither before 
his fatal illness, nor during the progress of his illness, was 
Alexander treated harshly. On the contrary, the utmost 
kindness was extended to him. By nature Philip was un- 
trustworthy. He was the degenerate descendant of a sire 
who had moral integrity enough to make pledges of friend- 
ship and keep them unto the end ; and in character he sug- 
gests his father only by contrast. He was base and 
treacherous. His impulses were low and cunning. The 
sense of honor which marked many a chief of the native 
tribes was wanting in him. Under the guise of friendship 
he could prosecute intrigues. When he was suspected, and 
his plans were uncovered, and he was openly charged with 
evil intent, he could make lies his refuge; or if he could 
not escape through the arts of duplicity, he was capable of 
confessing all in the most abject fashion, and falHng back 
on a new agreement and promise to do better in the future. 



414 THE PILGRIMS 

One of the confessions of this sort, which was made by 
him more than four years before the open rupture of ami- 
cable relations with the whites, was to the effect, that, 
through his " indiscretions " and " the naughtiness of his 
heart " he had " violated and broken the covenant " pre- 
viously made with the English, and " taken up arms with 
an evil intent against them, and that groundlessly ; " and 
that, having become " deeply sensible " of his " unfaithful- 
ness and folly," he wished to renew his treaty relations with 
these friends of his father and of himself, whom " at all 
times he had found kind." In token of the genuineness of 
his contrition he proposed to turn over his English arms 
to the Plymouth authorities. Had his confession been sin- 
cere it would have been to his credit. It was not sincere ; it 
was a trick. It was a move to gain time. He was acting a 
part; and both his acknowledgment of his faults and his 
offer to surrender his guns reveal the depths of abjectness 
into which he could descend. On occasion he could be inso- 
lent. When called to account for the non-fulfilment of his 
promise to surrender his muskets he snapped his fingers at 
the complaining officials and practically defied them to hold 
him to his agreement. But whether abject or insolent, he 
was false to the core and always open to suspicion. While 
he hated the Plymouth people with all the energy of his evil 
nature, and was hatching schemes for their destruction, he 
had the coolness and hypocrisy to tell the Boston men that 
he had no hostile designs against these near neighbors of 
his and that they were needlessly alarmed. He was a bom 
liar, and false to a degree to give him marked eminence, 
even in the circles of the most adroit schemers and hypo- 
crites of his unfortunate race. He was a past master in 
Machiavehanism. 

But while all this is true, it is also trae that Philip had 
a certain subtle power of leadership which was very pro- 
nounced. So much must be accorded to him. 
Capacity j^ [^ ^ot strange, perhaps, that as men have 

for leader- <liffered in their estimates of the moral char- 
sliip acter of this chief, so they have differed in 

their estimates of his intellectual abilities. One 
author says, " the talents were unquestionably of the first 



THE PILGRIMS 415 

order." Another says he had neither " forethought " nor 
" heroism." He has been designated by one writer as " a 
mighty prince ; " and by a second, who was in at his death, 
as " a doleful, dirty beast." One who has any preconceived 
notions of his gifts, whether mental or moral, may be sure 
of finding writers whose opinions coincide with his own. 

Still, whatever may be said to the contrary, Philip was a 
leader. He had the art of persuasion. He could impart 
his purpose to other minds. He could awaken enthusiasm 
for the cause he had at heart. Assert as we may that he 
had no marked mental gifts, say over and over again that 
he was without foresight and courage, reduce his moral 
quaHties — the moral quahties which we might expect to 
find exemplified in the chief of even a savage tribe — it is 
yet a fact that the man had a tremendous power of some 
sort, that he exerted a mighty influence, that he sowed seeds 
which matured into a harvest of havoc and ruin, and that he 
associated his name in such tragic fashion with a dark 
page in New England history that it will endure as long as 
the history itself endures. This was not the work of a weak- 
ling, timid, uncertain, purposeless, and moving in any direc- 
tion in which the wind might chance to blow ; but of a man 
capable of putting two things together, of exercising fore- 
sight, and largely endowed with will, force, and persistency. 

Very early in his career the scheme of forming a com- 
bination of the savage nations and wiping out the English 
took place in Philip's brain. He gave years of thought to 
the project ; and he wove his plot with the skill of one who 
has not a little power, a great deal of cunning, and no con- 
science. Under his manipulation of the mistrusts and 
prej udices and hates of his people, they were so far inflamed 
that they were finally hot for red-handed war. They 
avowed their intentions and declared hostilities by making 
an attack on Swansea and plundering and burning houses. 
This first rude assault of the conflict was made on the Ply- 
mouth colony. It occurred on the last days of June in 
1675. Soon men were ambushed and shot down while going 
to and from their houses, or walking along the highways; 
other towns were startled from their midnight slumbers by 
the waving of incendiary torches and the cry of fire ; other 



416 THE PILGRIMS 

murders were committed ; and war in all its fury and with 
all its horrors was raging far and wide. The design was 
first of all to overwhelm and annihilate the Pilgrims, and 
then to sweep out in a wider movement and carry destruc- 
tion to all the English settlements in New England. 



in 

The task Philip had in hand was not a light one. The 
ranks of the tribes which were determined to adhere to 
barbarism were greatly thinned. At the 
Indian breaking out of the war it is probable that in 

ranks ^11 New England there were less than twenty 

greatly thousand Indians. In the Massachusetts and 

reduced Plymouth colonies there could not have been, 

so it is estimated, more than twelve thousand 
natives. Phihp's own immediate tribe had dwindled to not 
much more than three hundred all told. The whites in New 
England had increased to more than fifty thousand. In 
Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, the confeder- 
ated colonies, the white population numbered over forty 
thousand. In face of this numerical advantage possessed 
by the English the savage chieftain had to organize war. 
In any event and to any forecast the issue must have seemed 
doubtful. It could have been no easy matter, therefore, for 
Philip to persuade other savage chieftains that the chances 
of success, even by resorting to all the methods of surprise, 
treachery, intimidation, and slaughter known to Indian 
warfare, were good. The more intelligent of them must 
have known that they were not good. 

This, however, is the least surprising part of the story. 
The nations and the tribes of the nations on which the son 
of Massasoit could rely for an effective cam- 
Feuds and paign against their civilized neighbors were 
jealousies alienated from each other by long-standing 
to be feuds and jealousies. Somehow, if anything 

reconciled ^g^g ^ ^g accomphshed, they must be recon- 
ciled, informed with a common aim, inflamed 
with a common passion, welded into unity, and prepared to 
deliver a blow which should have in it the terror of a con- 



THE PILGRIMS 417 

certed onset and the crushing weight of a combined 
strength. Insignificant as his own following was, he 
brought the leaders of the Nipmucks, a formidable foe 
when all their groups were united, and the leaders of the 
Narragansetts, with their four thousand warriors, to his 
way of thinking. Not without cunning and force, not with- 
out skilful intrigues and artful persuasions, we may be 
sure, was this result, so essential to his object, secured by 
Philip. 

But this is what he did. To confront a triple alliance of 
white men he brought about a triple alliance of red men ; 
and when the storm of open war broke upon the country it 
was organization against organization. Such results do 
not come of themselves ; and just then there was nobody in 
sight who could have secured this combination of the savage 
tribes except the wily Wampanoag chief. 

IV 

Still further, when the conflict was actually on, and 
torch and tomahawk were doing their deadly work, 

Philip found to his chagrin and sorrow that 
Part taken there was a large body of Christian Indians 
^7 who could not be detached from their loyalty 

Christian Iq ^^g EngHsh, but who, on the contrary, would 
Indians g^ye them aid and comfort in the Ufe-and-death 

struggle. Surely the missionaries who labored 
for the conversion of the Indians in the early days of the 
settlement of the Plymouth colony had their reward. They 
had their reward in the good done to the savages ; and they 
had the further reward of seeing those who had been 
brought into the faith of our Lord become an important 
factor in defense at an hour when the very existence of the 
colony was at stake. 

This statement applies to other colonies of New Eng- 
land; but it has special pertinency of application to the 
Plymouth colony. If it had not been for the labors of 
Eliot and his associates in Massachusetts, and of the May- 
hews in Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and of Bourne 
and his fellow-workers on the cape, it is difficult to see how 

27 



418 THE PILGRIMS 

the Plymouth colony could have survived this terrific shock. 
The Nausites alone, had they remained in their unevangel- 
ized state and at enmity with the English, would have been 
a serious menace to them at all times, and especially at this 
time. The Bay colony, more compact and far more pow- 
erful, might have fought her way through successfully. 
So might others of the colonies. Judging from this 
distance and taking all conditions into account, it seems 
probable that Plymouth would have been pushed to the 
wall. 

It must be gratefully conceded, therefore, that the Chris- 
tian Indians averted a dire disaster. Distrusted at first, as 

was not altogether unnatural, they came to be 
Immense ^j^g recognized guides of the httle companies 
value of and squads of white men in conducting their 
their partisan warfare, and their unfailing sup- 

services porters in hot and dangerous contests. It was 

the unerring bullet of a Christian Indian which 
laid Philip in the dust. It was under the daring lead of 
another Christian Indian that Church was enabled to drop 
down over a steep, shelving ledge into the presence of Ana- 
wan, the able lieutenant of Philip, and there, in what was 
supposed to be his inaccessible stronghold, surprise him into 
surrender. Indian captives were put in charge of Christian 
Indians, and the guardians never betrayed their trust. 
The Nipmucks in Massachusetts afford an exception — or 
some of them at any rate ; but for the most part, the pray- 
ing Indians, as they were called, kept the faith and were 
faithful. They added worthy names to the roll of martyrs. 
The Old Colony was abundantly compensated for all her 
outlays in behalf of the wild tribes into the midst of which 
she was thrown. No equal amount of money, time, and 
energy spent by the Pilgrims ever had so much defensive 
value as that wliich was devoted to winning the untutored 
children of the forest to the higher and better life of true 
disciples of the divine Master. It was not alone philan- 
thropy — it was a military measure of highest importance 
and it was statesmanship of the first order. Others may 
belittle efforts to bring barbarous peoples under the influ- 
ence of faith in the Son of God and a Christian civilization, 



THE PILGRIMS 419 

if they will ; but words in disparagement of sucH endeavors 
must ever have a strange sound coming from the lips of 
those whose ancestors had any association with Plymouth 
Rock. 



The war ran on for more than a year and a half. It 
began, as we have seen, within the jurisdiction of the Ply- 
mouth colony. The primary object of it was 
Course ^q exterminate the Plymouth people. From 

of the |-}jg beginning the struggle was fierce and san- 

■'^ar guinary. Massacre followed massacre, and 

town after town went up in flames. The open- 
ing attack on Swansea was quickly succeeded by attacks on 
Dartmouth, Middleborough, and Taunton. Encounters 
were frequent. Church was sent to the front at once ; but 
the conduct of the war was not in his hands. Had the direc- 
tion of operations been turned over to him at the first, as it 
was at the last, he would have made short work of Philip 
and his allies ; but he was hampered by his superiors ; and 
advantages which he gained in early skirmishes with the foe 
were not pursued and made decisive. 

At the end of a six weeks' campaign the scene of war 
shifted from the bounds of Plymouth to the territory of 
Massachusetts. Here it was the same blood- 
"^^^ curdling story of ambush, surprise, incendiary 

shifted flame, marauding adventure, capture, and 

from Ply- death. Through the autumn and winter, and 
mouth to up Iq |-bg edge of spring, the awful tragedy 
Massachu- occupied the stage. The abandonment of Men- 
setts don, the burning of Deerfield, the attacks on 
Hadley and Springfield, the destruction of 
Northfield, the frightful slaughter on both sides in the 
battle which raged about the fort of the Narragansetts in 
their swamp retreat, the siege of Brookfield, the harrowing 
story of Mrs. Rowlandson and her children captured in the 
assault on Lancaster, the sui'prise of Medfield, the sharp 
conflict, the property losses and the escapes at Groton, the 
wiping out of Marlborough, the melancholy defeat of the 



420 THE PILGRIMS 

gallant Wadsworth and his force of fifty men at Sudbury, 
the sudden and overwhelming assault made on the Indians 
and the failure through panic to reap the fruits of the 
victory at Turner's Falls, and the lamentable deaths of 
Captains Beers, Marshall, Lathrop, Johnson, Wadsworth, 
Turner, and others, along with many hundreds of brave 
men who were in the ranks of the various companies, fall 
into this period of horror. 



VI 

Meantime, having involved many communities in destruc- 
tion and brought many lives to an untimely end, the war 

swept back from the territory of the Bay col- 
War swept Q^y aj^(j began its ravages anew within the 
back into bounds of the Plymouth settlement. William 
Plymouth Clark's garrison-house, located within three 

miles of the Rock, was attacked and burned. 
The men were all at church. By an act of criminal care- 
lessness the gate of the house was left open. The Indians 
seized their opportunity, entered, killed eleven women and 
children, including Mrs. Clark, took what plunder they 
wished, set fire to the building, and fled. This was the first 
rude touch of the heavy hand of war felt within the pre- 
cincts of the town of Plymouth. A couple of weeks later, 
Captain Michael Peirce, of Scituate, started out with a 
hardy company of fifty of his fellow townsmen, and twenty 
friendly Indians from Cape Cod, to beat back the aggres- 
sive enemy. He met the foe in large numbers at a point 
called " Study Hill," in what is now Pawtucket, and he 
and his company were annihilated. Eight of the friendly 
Indians escaped, and those were all. It was a dark hour. 
Darker hours were to follow. Rehoboth was attacked 
and more than threescore houses and barns were reduced 
to ashes. Dartmouth and Middleborough had been aban- 
doned, and the destruction of residences in those towns 
was a simple matter. In addition to these places the part 
of Plymouth which is now called Halifax was burned. 
Bridgewater suffered, though no one of her people was mas- 



THE PILGRIMS 421 

sacred, and not one of her soldiers was lost in battle. Taun- 
ton, like Bridgewater, escaped with small property losses, 
but she suffered more in men. Five of her citizens lost 
their lives at the hands of the Indians. Scituate felt 
the full weight of the blow. Besides the loss of Peirce and 
his half a hundred of daring comrades who fell in one en- 
gagement, this town was desperately assaulted and more 
than twenty buildings, one of which was a sawmill, were 
given to the flames, and six men of family were slain. There 
were other disasters and sorrows. Along the border-line 
which separated the English and the Indians men took 
their hves in their hands when they went forth to their 
daily tasks ; and wives and mothers left alone with their 
babes knew not what bereavements a night might bring 
them. Eternal vigilance was the price the people had to 
pay for their lives, and the wonder is that all were not worn 
out by the constant strain of anxiety. 



VII 

The end was in sight. After a year or so of the consum- 
ing stiTiggle the Indians found their fighting forces reduced 

to small numbers and their resources of all 
End of sorts greatly diminished. They had staked all 

war in qjj f}^Q issue and were about to lose, 

sight Tj^g most hopeful feature of the outlook, 

however, was turning the direction of military 
operations over to Church. The authorities had been ex- 
perimenting in generals ; at last they found their Grant. 
Others had done well — some of them remarkably well ; 
but Church was both a bom strategist and a bom fighter. 
After two or three weeks of active campaigning at the begin- 
ning of the war, he had been practically retired from the 
service for the reason that his policies and methods did not 
commend themselves to those at the head of affairs. But 
he knew Indians quite as well as they knew themselves. He 
could meet them on their own ground and at their own tac- 
tics. He had the courage to brave dangers, the wariness to 
avoid traps, and the instinct and experience which told hira 



422 THE PILGRIMS 

when and where to strike. He had the magnanimity of all 
large-natured personahties. He could use friendly Indians 
in a way to make one white man with a red man at his side a 
vastly more effective force than two white men could be. 
Very soon Philip was tracked to his lair and shot. Nor was 
it long before Anawan was in the toils and compelled to 
yield up his Hfe. 

This practically ended the war. There were still enemies 
lurking in the swamps. Cattle were stolen, lives were not 

considered safe in exposed places, and the Eng- 
The end jjgjj were not altogether at ease. Other expe- 

reached ditions had to be organized ; but these were to 

pursue a timid, skulking foe. There were skir- 
mishes ; yet these were only the low and distant rumblings 
of a storm that had spent its force and passed over. 



VIII 

The cost of the war on both sides was great; but the 
results were permanent. Philip was dead. The power of 
the Wampanoags, the Narragansetts, and the 
Besults Nipmucks was broken, and their wasted 

of the strength could never be restored. More than 

"^^^ two thousand of the red warriors had been 

made to bite the dust. The sacrifices and suf- 
ferings of the Enghsh were hkewise appalUng. Thirteen 
towns were destroyed. Many other towns' were damaged. 
Six hundred dwelling-houses went up in flame. Not less 
than six hundred people — the most of them men, and some 
of them the foremost men in their several communities, were 
killed. Few were the homes in which there was not mourn- 
ing for the dead. Private property to the extent of one 
hundred and fifty thousand pounds was destroyed. Indus- 
try was diverted from many of its ordinary channels ; and 
prosperity was greatly hindered. Of the public outlay, 
twenty-seven thousand pounds fell to Plymouth colony. 

In connection with this bloody conflict two facts may be 
set down to the everlasting credit of the Pilgrims. 

One is that it was a Plymouth man — Captain Benja- 



THE PILGRIMS 423 

min Church, whom Goodwin well calls " the Myles Standish 
of the second generation " — who finally conducted the cam- 
paign to victory. That victory made it certain that in due 
time there were to be no more stealthy approaches of a wily 
foe, no more incendiary torches, no more tomahawks, no 
more deadly arrows flying at noonday, to bring terror and 
harm to these sturdy men and much-enduring women who 
were laying the foundations of a puissant nation. 

The other is that the debt contracted in carrying on the 
war was paid down to the last farthing. It was a stagger- 
ing debt. It would have been a hea^^ load to carry at any 
time. It was almost, if not quite, four pounds to each man, 
woman, and child within the jurisdiction. To have this 
saddled on top of their private losses, at a time, too, when 
their industry had been checked, and many of their enter- 
prises had been brought to a standstill, and there was noth- 
ing in which they could engage with the expectation of quick 
and large returns, was little less than crushing. To their 
everlasting honor, be it said, they paid it all. The fathers 
of the first generation set the example of paying all their 
money obligations in fuU. The children of the second gen- 
eration followed in the footsteps of their immediate forbears 
and never exposed themselves to the charge of repudiating 
an honest debt. The cloud which hung over the colony of 
the Pilgrims for more than a year was a dark one; but it 
had a silver lining : and the courage, the high purpose, the 
trust, the integrity, and the steadfastness of the people were 
made to shine with a fresh luster. 



XXI 

THE CLOSING YEARS 



The policy of James 11 had aroused such bitter feeling in America that 
William must needs move with caution. Accordingly he did not seek to 
unite New York with New England, and he did not think it worth while 
to carry out the attack which James had only begun upon Connecticut and 
Rhode Island. . . . But in the case of the httle Colony founded by the 
Pilgrims of the Alayfiower there were no obstacles. She was now annexed 
to Massachusetts. — John Fiske. 

In October, 1691, Plymouth was . . . rescued from the grasp of New 
York, but only to fall into that of Massachusetts. ... The body-politic 
created in the cabin of the Mayflower lived only in history. 

John A. Goodwin. 



XXI 

THE CLOSING YEARS 

THE closing years of the independent existence of the 
Plymouth colony were marked by sharp pains and 
cruel disappointments. Experiences of this kind were 
not new to the Pilgrims. Repeatedly and in many ways 
they had had their patience under trials and their staying 
quahties put to the test. There was still another cup of 
bitterness to be pressed to their lips. Near the end of their 
career as a separate and self-governing state they had to 
bear a weight of tyranny that was not only humiliating but 
exceedingly galhng. One cannot recount the facts without 
a feehng of fresh indignation against oppression, and of 
tender sympathy with those who were forced to suffer so 
keenly under the heavy hand of arbitrary power. 



In 1686 the New England colonies were consoHdated. 
Sir Edmund Andros was sent over by the king, James II, 

to take control and administer affairs. He 
Andros ^g^g then about fifty years of age. He had 

and his ^he training and experience of a soldier, and 

adminis- j^g counted it a cardinal virtue to obey orders, 
tration ^ dozen years before he had been made the 

governor of New York. He carried things 
with a high hand, and in the early eighties was recaDed. 
Coming under the second commission, he was not new to 
America ; and America had a pretty clear idea of what to 
expect from him. Without tact and with little sentiment in 
his nature, he would stick at nothing he was required to do. 
From the start he showed liimself to be the willing tool of 



428 THE PILGRIMS 

his master. He was to be aided by a council, which like 
himself was to be, not elected, but appointed. When 
brought together, this board of advisers was found to in- 
clude quite a large number of intelligent and reputable men. 
Some of the best and most competent representatives of the 
Plymouth colony were amongst those appointed. But the 
trustworthy men, for reasons not far to seek, soon fell to 
the rear, and the close advisers of the governor dwindled to 
a httle coterie who were more than ready to " crook the 
pregnant hinges of the knee that thrift might follow fawn- 
ing." They were tories before the day of tories in this 
western world, and their namesakes of the Revolutionary 
period could not deny the kinship though they had little 
occasion to be proud of it. One of them, as we shall see, was 
an Old Colony man. Verily, he had his reward. 

It is only in its bearings on the Plymouth colony, how- 
ever, that the arbitrary rule of Andros concerns us here. 
His hand was heaviest on the Bay colony ; for his official 
residence was at Boston. Besides, there was more in Boston 
to challenge his authority and dispute his usurpations than 
amongst the more quiet folk of the older settlement; but 
the Plymouth people felt the oppression keenly enough to 
make them groan and cry out in no mild terms of protest. 

Here are some of the indignities and wrongs which had to 
be endured under the administration of this imported gov- 
ernor. Their own governor — the governor of 
Indignities their own free choice — like the other gov- 
*^^ emors of New England, was displaced. The 

wrongs press was muzzled. Freedom of worship — 

one of the most sacred articles in their political 
and religious creed — was threatened. Persons having 
probate business in hand had to go to Boston to transact it. 
Titles to lands were put in jeopardy and large fees were 
exacted for confirming them. Indeed, the claim was that 
through the abrogation of the charter of the Bay colony, 
all titles to lands in that j urisdiction reverted to James ; 
and that, inasmuch as the Plymouth colony had never had 
a charter, the lands in any event belonged to the crown. 
This was exceedingly annoying as well as unjust and bur- 
densome. Town meetings, which played such an important 



THE PILGRIMS 429 

part in the system of government, were deprived of most of 
their rights and lost their significance. Laws were to be 
made by the governor and his council, subject only to con- 
formity to the laws of England and the royal sanction. 
Anybody might be called upon to take the oath of alle- 
giance to the king. Currency was to be regulated by this 
new executive. Taxes were no longer self-imposed by the 
vote of free citizens, but were determined by the chief exec- 
utive and his over-acquiescent advisers. Clark's Island, 
which had been set aside by the freemen of Plymouth to the 
support of the poor, was turned over to Nathaniel Clark. 
Clark was a son of the colony, but a favorite of the gov- 
ernor from overseas for the reason that he had bowed so 
subserviently to his will. On some trumped-up claim the 
island was to be made his private property. When protest 
was made by Ichabod Wiswell, the able and public-spirited 
minister of Duxbury, and Elder Faunce, they were fined for 
their impertinence, and otherwise insulted and wronged. 
Before the business was finally settled, the minister was 
treated to a taste of the humiliation and hardship with 
which malignant ingenuity can always torment its victims. 

From the closing days of 1686 till the spring of 1689 — 
about two years and a half — this state of things continued. 
It was the old tyranny under new conditions, but the old 
tyranny still. It had not reached the severity of the Lon- 
don, Norwich, and Scrooby days ; nevertheless it was 
headed that way, and, if unchecked, would soon come to it. 
All that was most valuable and sacred in the great venture 
made by the Pilgrims was at stake. Religious liberty, 
political liberty, the rights of property, were alike put in 
jeopardy. The wide diffusion of knowledge was discour- 
aged, the enjoyment of freedom was restrained, the exercise 
of self-government was denied. It was an attempt to pluck 
up the oak of liberty, which had had such a healthy and 
vigorous growth in its new soil, and set it back, with roots 
trimmed, into the pot of tyranny from which it had been 
transplanted. The people held their breath and bided their 
hour. 



430 THE PILGRIMS 



II 

Relief came with a suddenness which was quite as sur- 
prising as it was gratifying. When word reached Boston 
that Wilham had set foot on Enghsh soil, and 
Timely ^g^g making his way to the seat which James 

relief would have to vacate, the outraged people of 

the community rose up in the might of a right- 
eous wrath, seized the governor, and compelled him to re- 
sign. Four days later the good news reached Plymouth. 
This put things back where they were when Andros arrived 
and assumed control of affairs. 

Committees of public safety were extemporized. In some 
of the colonies there was a little more deliberation than in 
others ; but in all of them the people sprang 
Governors ^i Q^^^e to their feet. They knew what ought to 
restored j^g done, and they did it. The superseded gov- 

ernors were called upon to step into their old 
places and resume their old duties. 

In Massachusetts, on the day following the imprisonment 
of Andros, Simon Bradstreet, who was then eighty-seven 
years old, and who had been put out of the governorship 
through the administrations of both Dudley and Andros, 
was restored to his office by one of those self-created com- 
mittees, though he did not attempt to exercise the regular 
functions of liis office till somewhat later. In Connecticut, 
in accordance with " some general understanding, a number 
of principal men," got together and submitted to a mass 
meeting of freemen the question whether those who were in 
authority when Andros came should be restored to place 
and power. The question was answered in the affirmative ; 
and Robert Treat became once more the acknowledged head 
of the colony. He was kept in his place for nine years 
more. In Rhode Island things took the same course; but 
Walter Clarke, the displaced governor, had no heart for 
the controversy, and declined what seemed to him the peril- 
ous honor. 

At Plymouth, Thomas Hinckley, who was first elected 
governor in 1680, and who had been annually reelected up 



THE PILGRIMS 431 

to the time of Sir Edmund, walked to the front and sat down 
in the chair of chief executive just as if there had been 
no break. The only thing in the transaction which showed 
heat as well as a firm determination to have their wrongs set 
right was the arrest of Nathaniel Clark. As we have seen, 
he was an Old Colony man, who had lent himself heart and 
soul to the schemes of Andros, and had endeavored, through 
the favor of his chief, to secure possession of Clark's 
Island. He was imprisoned, put in irons, and sent on the 
same ship with Andros to England. On the other side of 
the water the officials took a different view of the case from 
that taken on this side, and Clark came back rewarded 
rather than punished for what he had done. He never re- 
gained the favor of his fellow-citizens ; and the infamy of 
his attempt to secure possession of the island, which had 
come to have a sort of sacredness in the estimation of the 
Plymouth people, followed the man to his grave and can 
never be dissociated from his name. 



Ill 

It is one of the most edifying spectacles in our political 
history to see how democracy acquitted itself on this trying 

occasion. A stone had been dropped into the 
■A^ waters and the waters had parted ; but as soon 

edifying ^s the stone was out of sight they flowed to- 
spectacle gether again and the surface was as smooth as 

ever. To be able to recur to such an instance 
gives one a new confidence in the political instincts and 
sagacity of a self-governing people, and a fresh assurance 
that men who love liberty and are trained in the habit of 
liberty, will know how to meet emergencies in which liberty 
is in peril. It would seem as if these immediate descendants 
of the Pilgrim Fathers and heirs of the great Mayflower 
Compact were not in need of further lessons on the value of 
the equal rights of man, and the importance of maintaining 
them at all hazards, than they had learned at the feet of 
their sires; but no doubt this doctrine of equal rights, 
which they made central to their system of government and 



432 THE PILGRIMS 

on which they laid such emphasis, was far more precious to 
them after they had been at school to oppression for a 
couple of years. No doubt, too, that the memory of Andros 
and his hicavy hand was a potent factor in the determination 
to stand by their democracy and maintain it, or die in the 
attempt, when Hutchinson and Gage occupied the seats of 
the mighty in Boston and were doing the will of George III, 



IV 

The new charter for Massachusetts brought over from 
England by the new governor, William Phipps, was signed 
in October, 1691. This charter embraced the 
Plymouth Qjj Colony. When it was set in operation on 
united to i\^q following year the independent political ex- 
Massachu- istence of the little state founded by the Pil- 
setts grims, and cherished by them and their children 

as the apple of the eye, came to an end. In the 
light of any alternative of which we can think, it would 
hardly be reasonable to say that the end was untimely. 

From the records of the transaction which have been pre- 
served it is evident that the colonists held divergent views 
on the wisdom of this measure. The colony had never had 
a charter. The time had come when it appeared to be im- 
practicable to try to go on without one. The people in 
general, or a large majority of them, were eager to secure a 
charter, and under the shelter of it, to continue as they were 
— an independent, self-governing community. Some of the 
leaders were suspected of entertaining opinions on this ques- 
tion which were not in harmony with the prevailing 
sentiment. 

Nevertheless, there was a united and earnest effort made 
to obtain the charter and thus preserve and perpetuate the 
independent life of the colony. Agents were appointed to 
present the case to the English officials. These agents were 
Sir Henry Ashurst, of England, Increase Mather, of Bos- 
ton, and Ichabod Wiswell, of Duxbury. There were three 
difficulties in the way. It was in the mind of the English 
government to annex the Plymouth colony to New York. 



THE PILGRIMS 433 

Money was needed to prosecute the request for a charter to 
a successful issue, and Plymouth was too poor to raise the 
sum required. Mather was only half-hearted in his advo- 
cacy of the wishes of the colony. He prevented, so it is 
claimed, the annexation of Plymouth to New York ; but 
when it came to the point of uniting the Old Colony to the 
Bay colony it is charged that he was lukewarm in his 
efforts to preserve the interests of the Plymouth people. 

Be all this as it may, the charter was not obtained. Ply- 
mouth was absorbed by Massachusetts ; and from that day 
to this the commonwealth of the Pilgrims has been an inte- 
gral part of the commonwealth of the Puritans. 



As already intimated, this was a consummation to be 
desired. Limited in area, small in the number of its inhabit- 
ants, without resources to yield wealth, without 
A consum- commodities and harbors to attract commerce, 
mation to i]^q qjj Colony could hardly have been ex- 
be desired pected to develop into a commanding state. 
While we sympathize with the people in their 
keen disappointment over the loss of their civic unity and 
independence, it is impossible not to feel that it was better 
on all accounts for the two colonies to become one ; and that 
the men who entertained this view at the time were the wiser 
statesmen. Goodwin says that " this result was bitterly de- 
plored by the people of Plymouth, and Hinckley lost friends 
through covertly promoting it." Thacher says that " it 
appears that some distinguished individuals were dissatis- 
fied with the union of the two colonies, but Governor Hinck- 
ley was well reconciled to the measure, and it is clearly 
understood that the union was at no period a subject of 
regret with the people generally." These two statements 
are not so far apart as they seem to be on the surface ; and 
they show clearly that the instincts of the wisest leaders, 
and the sober, second thought of the people at large, were 
in favor of a step which is now seen to have been inevitable. 
Plymouth went where she belonged. Her historic associa- 

28 



434 THE PILGRIMS 

tions, her opinions and sentiments, her methods and habits, 
her location and identity of interests, and the gravitations 
of her hfe, fitted her in a preeminent degree for union with 
her sister colony of the Bay. Plymouth did not lose, but 
gained by the union. As Queen Mary, whom the loyal col- 
onists were prompt to acknowledge, when with her husband 
she ascended the throne of England, did not surrender, but 
preserved the dignity and power of her royal house by 
merging her life in the life of William, the Prince of 
Orange, so the weaker colony was saved to all that was best 
in the possibihties of the future by coming into vital rela- 
tions with the stronger. It was a victorious defeat. The 
Pilgrims lost their poUtical identity only to find it again in 
the larger Hfe and wider glory of a commonwealth whose 
achievements in learning and liberty, in extending an even- 
handed justice to all, and in character-building, may well 
challenge the admiration of mankind. In the consumma- 
tion of this union each colony added something valuable to 
the other, and each colony received something valuable from 
the other. Plymouth contributed the Immortal names of 
Bradford, Brewster, and Standish, and a record of seventy 
years of heroic daring and splendid achievements in self- 
government, to the enrichment of the commonwealth of the 
Bay State ; and in turn entered into a full share in the in- 
heritance of the names of Winthrop, Endicott, and Cotton, 
and of the memorable deeds wrought by them and their 
successors through all the years which have followed. 
Neither would Massachusetts mean so much were she not 
able to identify her history with Plymouth Rock ; nor would 
Plymouth Rock mean so much had not the significance of 
it been caught and carried forward in the life, laws, cus- 
toms, and institutions of Massachusetts. Bradford and 
Winthrop lock hands in the model commonwealth of the 
world. 



XXII 
LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE PILGRIMS 



History ought surely in some degree, if it is worth anything, to anticipate 
the lessons of time. We shall all, no doubt, be wise after the event ; we study 
history that we may be wise before the event. — John Robert Seelet. 

The story of the Pilgrims has all the elements of a fascinating romance. 
When it is read in the light of what they have produced and in the spirit of 
sympathy which appreciates and enjoys the religious and civil hberty we 
inherit, it is fitted beyond most uninspired records to kindle exalted ideas 
of citizensliip and to stimulate young and old to self-denying service of 
eoimtry and mankind. — A. E. Dunning. 

Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were 
brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian rehgion. They 
journeyed in its hght and laoored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its 
principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence 
through all their institutions, civil, pohtical, and Uterary. Let us cherish 
these sentiments, and extend their influence still more widely. 

Daniel Webster. 

They established what they planned. Their feeble plantation became 
the birthplace of religious liberty, the cradle of a free Commonwealth. To 
them a mighty nation owes its debt. Nay, they made the civihzed world 
their debtor. In the varied tapestry which pictures our national life, the 
richest spots are those where gleam the golden threads of conscience, cour- 
age, and faith, set in the web of that httle band. May God in His great mercy 
grant that the moral impulse which founded this nation may never cease to 
control its destiny. — Rogee Wolcott. 

Were I to choose the one spot above all others wherein to teach my son 
the lessons of religious truth and national patriotism, I should bring him to 
Plymouth Rock. — Henby W. Grady. 

Their faithful sons and daughters breathe 
New songs to swell their deathless fame, 

And shall to latest heirs bequeath 
Due honor to the Pilgrim name. 

George M. Herrick. 



XXII 

LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE PILGRIMS 

THE story has been told. The high resolve, the brave 
endeavor, the trying experience, the hardships and 
perils, the defeats and final triumphs of the Pilgrims 
have been spread before us. It remains to consider whether 
there are any lessons applicable to those of us who live in 
this day and generation, and occupy the land they subdued, 
to be learned from a study of the remarkable achievements 
of this little band of heroic souls. Were they loyal to ideals 
and under the control of motives which may well continue to 
be the ideals and motives of their successors in training 
manhood and managing public affairs .f* We are reaping 
precious fruits from the seed sown by these diligent and 
wise Fathers; we have entered into the sacred inheritance 
of their foresight, prayers, toils, and sacrifices ; and, mov- 
ing forward on the lines which they opened, we have be- 
come a great nation. Over and above this are there any 
guiding ideas to be discovered, any underlying truths or 
maxims of permanent value disclosed, in what the Ply- 
mouth colonists said and did, which may be wrought into 
our twentieth century systems, and made ruling factors in 
the policies of the men who now hold the center of the stage, 
and shape public opinion, and give direction to movements 
in church and state.'' 

A simple statement of what they believed, of the theories 
on which they proceeded in doing their work, of the aims, 
private and public, which they cherished, and of the spirit 
which they illustrated, will show us with what tremendous 
emphasis this question is to be answered in the affirmative. 
Indeed, it may be confidently asserted that the leading views 
which these men accepted for the government of their in- 



438 THE PILGRIMS 

dividual and associated life, the ideals which they followed, 
the motives to which they yielded, and the ends which they 
sought to accomplish, are as opportune and imperative to- 
day as they were in the days in which the Pilgrims acted 
their part in the mighty drama of human progress, and won 
a place of renown in history from which they can never be 
dislodged. 

The Pilgrims, be it remembered, were plain, and, for the 
most part, unlettered men. All the same, they recognized 
their individual responsibilities, and did not a little hard, 
independent, and exceedingly profitable thinking. They 
were not academic hair-splitters. They did not reach their 
conclusions from the premises of the schools. They were 
common-sense logicians. The lessons they learned were 
fresh and personal to themselves. They went back to first 
principles, and kept close to the heart of things. This is 
true of them in the matter of civil government, as we have 
already seen in the instance of the Mayflower Compact. It 
is also true of them in the sphere of religion. They struck 
through form to substance, and laid stress on tjie great 
simples of the faith. They failed in some things ; but they 
did not fail in the things which are fundamental to the best 
life that now is and to the life which is to come. With them 
it was not mint, anise, and cummin, but the weightier mat- 
ters of the law. They built on sure foundations. 



To begin with, the Pilgrims had exalted views of God, 
and their faith in him was profound. He was bed-rock to 

all their thinking, and controlling factor in 
Had ex- ^11 their actions. His existence, personality, 
alted views purity, and indwelling and overbrooding pres- 
of God ence were as real to them as the earth they 

walked on or the air they breathed. Without 
ever having heard the phrase they practised the presence 
of God. In their own experience they found a testimony 
to the saving grace, the sweet comforting nearness, and the 
sustaining strength of the Most High which was convincing 
and conclusive. Often they walked in sorrow, and always 



THE PILGRIMS 439 

along paths of hardship ; but they walked with God. The 
Friend of Abraham was their Friend, the Father of the 
Christ was their Father; and they reverenced and adored 
him, and sought in all things to know and to do his will. 
Like Isaiah and Paul and Edwards and Robertson and all 
devout souls, they felt awe of God, and all their approaches 
to him were humble and reverent. One never detects them 
in making overfamiliar and flippant addresses to the Al- 
mighty. It would have been impossible for these men to 
think of God as other than infinitely august and sacred — 
the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity. 

It is a suggestive fact that the Pilgrims were wont to use 
capital letters in writing out the name of God. It was not 
god, as the rationalists write it ; nor God, as 
Spelled reverent believers write it ; but GOD, with every 

God with letter large. Using the largest letters, however, 
capitals ^Jt^ which to set forth the name of God was not 

confined to their epistles and pamphlets and 
journals ; they carried the custom over into their daily lives 
— into their home circles, into their industries and business 
activities, and into their legislation. Always and every- 
where and in everything, they spelled God with capital 
letters. Since the days of the Old Testament theocracy it 
would be difficult to cite a people, small or large, who kept 
God so constantly in their minds, who magnified his name 
to such an extent in both worship and work, and who aimed 
to be guided so entirely by his will, as the members of 
that little, struggling Plymouth colony. 

The assertion is often made that the Pilgrims, in common 
with all Puritans of their age, failed in a proper apprecia- 
tion of the fatherhood of God. This may be. 
Appreciated j^ jg ^q easy matter to maintain an even bal- 
fatherhood ance in our conception of the gentler and 
of God sterner elements in the divine character. It 

is only when the clock is not going that the 
pendulum ceases to swing to extremes and rests at the 
center of its arc of movement. 

The love of God is a fact to be magnified evermore. God 
is love — not loving merely, but love. Woe to a race of 
erring and sinful men were it not so. The Christ was here 



440 THE PILGRIMS 

because of the love of the Father. His being here set forth 
this love in the most positive and impressive way. Besides 
showing it by taking his place in the ranks of our human- 
ity, he declared it in every persuasive form of speech and 
ministry and sacrifice. In his presence and in his various 
services he was an unimpeachable testimony to the love of 
God for the world. It is a loss to anybody not to have the 
conception of the love of God which expresses itself in 
fatherhood. Robinson, in the earlier stages of the career 
of the Pilgrims, did not fail in this particular; nor did 
Brewster and Bradford and their associates and successors 
in the later stages. The word was not so often on their 
tongues ; but the idea which underlies fatherhood was in 
their minds, and the sense of fatherhood was in their 
hearts. 

But while this is true, the thinkers in this remarkable 
group of men could not escape the conclusion that God is 

not only a God of love, but a God of righteous- 
Empha- ness. Indeed, they could not understand how 

sized the }jg could be a God of love without being a God 
righteous- ^f righteousness. In their view love is not 
ness of iQve unless it is articulated and veined through 

^°^ and through with righteousness. " Holy, holy, 

holy, is the Lord of hosts " is an ascription 
to the Almighty in which they heartily joined. Thinking in 
this way, it was inconceivable to them that God is or can be 
blind to moral distinctions and fail to discriminate between 
right and wrong, truth and falsehood, purity and impurity, 
justice and injustice. They recognized the duty of loving 
God with all the heart and soul and mind, and their neigh- 
bors as themselves ; but they likewise considered it to be 
duty to obey God. They never permitted the fact of the 
holiness of God to drop out of their schedule of the divine 
attributes. They discovered holiness in the forefront of 
the character of God ; they saw holiness informing the law 
of God ; they found holiness emphasized on every page of 
the Old Testament and the New; they felt the force of 
holiness in the conduct of life and in the moral government 
of the world ; and they could not get away from the infer- 
ence and the conviction that holiness is of vast importance 



THE PILGRIMS 441 

in the estimation of him who has called the race into being 
and seeks to have all men become partakers of the divine 
nature. 

After all, in the emphasis which they put upon righteous- 
ness in their conception of the character of God, were not 
these Pilgrims in exact line with our Lord 
In line jjj j^g great intercessory prayer? He began 

with our by saying " Father." How tender and sweet 
^°^*^ the word must have sounded as it fell on the 

ears of the disciples from the lips of Jesus! 
He said " O Father." He did not stop, however, with this 
simple form of address; but went on to characterize the 
fatherhood. What were the quahfying words which he 
applied.'' They were these two very significant ones — 
" holy " and " righteous." The forms he used were " holy 
Father " and " righteous Father." To thoughtful minds 
it cannot be a matter of small import that our Lord, in 
the situation in which he then was, and in the service in 
which he was then engaged, should have employed just 
these adjectives. One can think of other descriptive terms 
which might have been used, and which would seem to lie 
in line with the ordinary idea of fatherhood; but Jesus 
with his divine insight turned from all these ani said — 
" holy Father," " righteous Father." 

It is not possible to insist too strenuously on the love of 
God ; but it is possible to misconceive what the love of God is, 
and to degrade it into a vapory sentimentalism. The 
fatherhood of God is a truth precious and sacred beyond 
expression ; but it will not do to eliminate righteousness 
from the conception of it. It is because the fatherhood 
which is brought to our knowledge in the New Testament is 
a righteous fatherhood that it is ideal and evermore worthy 
of confidence. The God in whom the Pilgrims believed had 
in him robust moral qualities. Faith in such a God put 
iron into their blood, strength into their muscles, and deter- 
mination into their wills. They loved ; but they preferred 
to show their love, not so much in ardent expressions of af- 
fection as in keeping the commandments. 



442 THE PILGRIMS 



II 

The religion of the Pilgrims, as might be inferred from 
the attitude of recipiency and obedience which they took 

towards God, was of the positive, earnest, and 
A positive enduring type. The full enjoyment of religion 
and ear- ^g^g q^q ^f ^y^Q chief motives which led them 
nest re- from England to Holland, and from Holland 

ligion ^Q America. They never sought to revise their 

estimate of the surpassing importance of things 
spiritual over things material. Godhness was always more 
to them than gain. From beginning to end they made the 
kingdom of God the first object of their seeking. Whatever 
means were available for developing and strengthening 
their religious life they used. They had frequent occasion 
to be solicitous ; but the anxiety which burdened them most 
heavily was anxiety lest they fall short on the Godward 
side and fail to hve up to the standard of their convictions. 
They believed, and therefore they had power. It was unto 
them according to their faith. 

Some characteristics of their religion, and some of the 
methods by which they fostered and developed spiritual 
life, are evident from what has gone before, and call for 
only brief mention. 

The Pilgrims were men of prayer. Closet devotions and 
family devotions, as well as public devotions, had a place in 

the economy of their lives. Prayer did not seem 
Men of Iq them a meaningless act, nor a fruitless act, 

prayer ^qj. qj^ ^^t unbecoming in a rational creature. 

They had no idea that the Maker of the uni- 
verse and the Author of our being is so hedged in by his own 
laws that he cannot hear the cries of his earthly children 
and come to their relief ; or that what is fondly supposed to 
be communion with God is only a kind of intellectual gym- 
nastic which ends in its own motions ; or that the Master 
was under the sf>ell of a fascinating illusion when he sup- 
posed he was holding intercourse with the Father, or mocked 
the disciples when he instructed them to ask in the assur- 
ance that they were to receive, and to say " Thy Kingdom 



THE PILGRIMS 443 

Come." When in sore straits, or when grave questions were 
up for adjustment, these men never failed to come together 
and to unite in earnest supplication that they might be di- 
rected from on high. Nor was any day so crowded, nor any 
work which they had in hand so pressing, that they did not 
take time to open their hearts to God and seek his guidance 
and strength. " After prayer " is a phrase which recurs 
and flashes like a diamond on the pages of their narratives. 
The Pilgrims were strict in their observance of the Sab- 
bath. They counted the hours of the first day of the week 
sacred. As they allowed no outward demand or 
Sabbath interest to interfere with their dtity and privi- 

observers lege of prayer, so they never indulged them- 
selves in any desecration of the time set apart 
for rest and worship. " Remember," " keep holy," were 
written not only in the Book, but on the tablets of their 
hearts. Recall the Sunday spent on Clark's Island. Was 
there ever a more marked instance of conscientious observ- 
ance of holy time.'' 

To the Pilgrims the Church was a divine institution. 
God and not men had originated it and defined its functions. 
They cherished it as the apple of the eye. 
The church xhey watered it with their tears. They kept it 
a divine alive by their sacrifices. They warmed it into 
institution efficiency by their devotions. They sought 
in every way to guard its honor. As soon 
"would they have thought of establishing a colony with- 
out soil to till, or air to breathe, as of attempting to 
found and build up a happy and successful community 
without a church. The fellowship of behevers in the wor- 
ship of God was to them an essential of right living. 

The Pilgrims had faith in the providential guidance of 
God, and in the divine purpose to turn all events to the 
good of his people. Fortunate was it for them 
Faith in that their minds took this direction and that 
providen- they were led to entertain these views. For the 
tial guid- share they had to accept of adversity and sor- 
ance j.q^ ^^s very large. They knew what it was to 

be turned and overturned by malignant foes ; 
but instead of their faith being weakened it was strength- 



444 THE PILGRIMS 

ened by what they had to endure. They were not soured 
but softened by afflictions. Fires did not consume, but 
refined them. In the darkest of their midnights they sang. 
Their sore distresses, their temptations and thwartings of 
purpose, were met in a way to set them forward in patience 
and hohness. Their knowledge of things divine was wider, 
their devotion was more earnest, there was more vigor and 
symmetry in their character, because of what they suffered. 
Suffering, like the law, was a schoolmaster to bring them to 
Christ. 

The Pilgrims were lovers of the Book. To them the 
Bible was a divinely inspired volume. They read it; they 

pondered over it ; they discussed its teachings 
liovers of Q^e with another ; they applied its precepts to 
the Book their daily lives ; they put cheer into their 

hearts and invigorated their courage with 
its promises ; and they sought in all things to be gov- 
erned by its directions. In a very literal sense the Scrip- 
tures were a lamp unto their feet and a Hght unto their 
paths. With the truths which they found in them they 
fed their souls into health and robustness. At the foun- 
tain which they opened to them they quenched their thirst, 
and knew that they had been drinking the waters of 
life. With them " Thus-saith-the-Lord " was an end of 
controversy. 

Some of the views of the Scriptures held by the Pilgrims 
— their views, for intance, of the method and measure 

of inspiration, of the way in which some of the 
Some books were constructed, the inerrancy of some of 

views not ^j^g statements made, and the right interpreta- 
tenable ^^Jq-^j g^j^^j apphcation of some of the ceremonial 

teacliings of the Old Testament — would hardly 
stand the test of a ripened and devout scholarship. They 
misunderstood some passages, they misapplied some pas- 
sages, just as others through the centuries have done, and 
just as others are still doing; but the interpretations 
in which they erred, and the applications in which they 
missed the mark, were of small consequence in comparison 
with those in which to their own good, the good of the 
world and the glory of God they succeeded. No argument 



THE PILGRIMS 445 

of doubters and no skill of critics could have persuaded 
these men that the Bible is not a self-authenticating revela- 
tion of the will of God to mankind. To them the reality 
and genuineness of its inspiration were made evident in the 
inspiration which an earnest and honest reading of it 
brought to their own souls. 

If they turned to the Old Testament for instruction and 
encouragement somewhat more frequently than average 
believers in these modem times are wont to do, 
Old Testa- j^ ^^g only what might have been expected. 
ment much Oppressed and humiliated, driven from their 
^^®*^ homes and spoiled of their earthly goods, guilty 

of no crime but the crime of believing in Jesus 
Christ, and trying in his name to live simple, pure and 
fruitful lives, and forced to worship, if they had any wor- 
ship in common, in secluded chambers, or in the dens and 
caves of the earth, they went back instinctively to those old 
days of storm and stress when the times were so sadly out of 
joint, and good men were forced to suffer every kind of 
indignity and wrong. Here they found parallels to their 
own harsh treatment. Here they discovered how men, who 
trusted in God, would carry themselves in emergencies when 
corruption was running riot in society, and the authorities 
in church and state were in league with the jxjwers of dark- 
ness, and foes, full of deceit and cruelty and armed to the 
teeth, confronted them on every side. Here, hkewise, they 
gathered comfort and reinforcement of purpose in the as- 
suring words of stout and undaunted prophets. Here the 
uplifting songs of psalmists, whose clear voices of trust and 
unfaltering notes of hope, ringing out over all the tumult 
of the hour, charmed them into fresh confidence in God. 

It is one of the encouraging signs of the times that both 
for instruction in righteousness and for devotional aid, 
people are turning with a renewed interest to the Old 
Testament. It will be a long time hence when the world 
has nothing more to learn from the story of Moses and 
Isaiah, and can no longer sit with profit at the feet of 
Eli j ah and Daniel, and has no further use for the Twenty- 
Third Psalm. 

In addition to these more conventional, but exceedingly 



446 THE PILGRIMS 

fruitful ways of fostering their religious life, the Pilgrims 
kept an open mind. They walked with their faces towards 

the light, and in constant expectation that 
Kept an through the ministry of the Spirit, the un- 

openmind folding of Providence, and the faithful study 

of the Word, clearer views of truth, and a 
better apprehension of the bearings of truth on life, would 
be granted to them. 

It has been a question in debate whether Robinson in his 
farewell words to the departing Pilgrims recalled and 

committed to paper by Winslow twenty-five 
What years or more after they were spoken — to the 

Bobinson effect that further Hght might be expected to 
meant break forth from the Scriptures, had reference 

to church government or to spiritual truth. 
Dismissing all prejudice and reading the whole passage as 
it stands, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that 
something more vital than mere polity must have been in 
the mind of the author. At all events, this was the accus- 
tomed attitude of the man and the mental habit which he 
encouraged in his followers. 

He and his people kept the inlets of their souls open 
to all fresh reveahngs of the will of God. They held fast to 

what truth they had; but if there was more to 
Hospitable \jq, unfolded they stood ready to give it welcome, 
to more Their God was a living God. He was a very 
light present help. He had secrets, they were sure, 

to whisper to those who trusted in him and 
tried to walk in his ways. Their eager searchings for the 
path of duty, their wide inquiries here and there of persons 
who might be supposed to know, when perplexing questions 
were up for settlement, were sometimes pathetic. For more 
light they always had a ready hospitahty. 

Indeed, one of the most impressive facts brought out in a 
study of the spiritual side of the Pilgrims is the intimacy 

they seemed to have with God, and the way in 
Ensphered which their lives were ensphered in him. To 
in God them the divine imminence was a reality. God 

was not afar ; he was near. He had an ear to 
hear, and they could speak to him. In the thought of 




IHi: I'll.dltl.M .MONT.-MKNr, I'I,V.Mt)l Til 



THE PILGRIMS 447 

Bradford, Brewster, and the rest of them, God was just as 
close to their need as he had been to Abraham and Moses, 
to David and Isaiah, or to John and Paul and other early 
disciples. 

In view of the direct access which they felt that they 
had to God in this conception of his nearness, it has some- 
times been said that the Pilgrims were mystics. 
Not mys- Were the charge true it would be nothing to 
*^*^^ their discredit. For there is a vital truth in 

mysticism — only this vital truth was in Chris- 
tianity before it was in mysticism, and we do not have to 
go to mysticism to find it. But in the technical sense of 
the term the Pilgrims were not mystics. They were mys- 
tics only to the degree in which all genuine Christians are 
mystics. They did not rely on feeHng. They did not fall 
back on the claim of a supernatural sense. Waiting quietly 
in the temper of a serene openmindedness, and expecting 
in this way to receive all the hght which they needed, was 
foreign to their habit. 

They did wait. They were openminded. The windows 
of their souls were flung wide to the sunrisings ; and while, 
it may be, they saw no flaming visions, yet in 
Had their ^j^g radiance of the instreaming light they saw 
own ex- things with their own eyes. They had attent 

perience ears, and notes of the old, but ever new song 

of the morning stars were caught by them and 
turned into music for the day's march. They had experi- 
ences in the Mount to which their bronzed but shining faces 
bore testimony. They knew Christ because they believed 
him, and they believed him with an increasing confidence 
and tenacity because they knew him. The Spirit witnessed 
with their spirits ; and because of his indwelling they were 
able to bear personal witness to the truth. Their contact 
with the Father in all the leading ways in which he comes 
into manifestation to his children was direct. Things 
divine were real to their apprehension. They would not 
have made the statement with the same assurance ; but " We 
know " would have had just as much pertinency on the lips 
of these men as on the lips of the great apostle. They did 
not know so much; but what they did know they knew 



448 THE PILGRIMS 

with an equal certainty. The gates of their souls turned 
easily on their hinges ; and it took but a touch of the 
unseen Hand to swing them open and secure admission 
for thoughts from on high. In the disclosures of still 
hours, in earnest meditation, and through intercourse with 
God and with one another, they were made rich in heavenly 
lore. 

Still the Pilgrims were not mystics. They used all the 
faculties they possessed in quest of the truth. Reason and 
feeling, faith and patience, activity and serene passiveness 
were all brought into requisition to secure a better under- 
standing of the character and wiU of God. They searched 
the Scriptures. They meditated and prayed. They studied 
providences and compared opinions. They were eager 
learners in the school of adversity. They sifted theories 
and subjected them to the test of their every-day and well- 
seasoned sagacity. If, in the university sense, these men 
were not scholars, they were yet sturdy thinkers ; and they 
had no idea that they were to be floated away on dream- 
clouds into the realm of truth. Their faith was ear-marked 
by hard work and a determination to know God, and they 
spared no efforts to understand how one may come into 
right relations with God. 

It is just as wide of the mark to say that the Pilgrims, in 
virtue of the immediacy of their experience of God, and of 
their first hand knowledge of the truths which 
Not ra- Jig Q^i i}i^ basis of Christian character and give 

tionalists form and force to Christian life, went behind 
the Bible in any such way as is commonly 
understood or implied when this kind of language is used. 
To the extent and in the manner already described they 
went behind the Bible, but not otherwise. 

They did not regard the Bible with an idolatrous devo- 
tion, but on its pages they saw the revelation of the divine 
will, and in its directions they caught the accents of the 
divine voice. The Bible was the road, and not the end of the 
journey. It was the lamp whose clear shining lighted them 
on the way. It was the hand that led them. It was their 
chief help to immediacy of contact with the Father, and 
their unerring guide in finding Christ and coming under 



THE PILGRIMS 449 

the power of the Holy Spirit. In no other way did they go 
behind the Bible. On the contrary they cherished and 
exalted the Bible. 

What the Pilgrims wanted was a working knowledge 
of the deep things of God. This is what they secured. 
They came into the secret of the hidden life. 
Sought They knew God through the inbreathing of 

working his vitaHzing truth. They knew him in the 
knowledge realized purpose of his chastenings. They 
of God knew him in the consciousness of adoption into 

sonship. They knew him in the moral energy 
he is sure to impart when he wishes to prepare men for 
some impressive testimony to the truth, or some signal ser- 
vice to mankind. Their knowledge was a knowledge which 
comes from a thought to thought, heart to heart, life to life 
relationship with God. Dull eyes see not, and dull ears hear 
not ; but these colonists for conscience* sake both saw and 
heard. Their rehgion was not of the hearsay order. They 
looked straight into the face of the Master. They caught 
the whispers of his voice. They had a first hand and not 
a second hand experience. They could take oath of their 
own knowledge. 

So whatever may be said about their views, and whatever 
differences of opinion there may be concerning the wisdom 
of the methods by which they reached their 
Had a results, and however unsatisfactory much of 

vital and their theology and exegesis may seem to up-to- 
vitalizmg ^j^j-g scholarship, it is not to be denied that the 
religion Pilgrims had a religion which was at once vital 

and vitalizing. It was as genuine as the stars. 
It was as deep as life. It was as real as the soul. It was a 
rehgion which made weak men strong, and transformed 
simple men into heroes whose place in the temple of fame 
is forevermore secure. The Pilgrims, as has been intimated, 
may have been wrong in some of the details of their belief, 
and oversevere in some of their practises. No doubt they 
were. They may have emphasized some doctrines at the 
expense of proportion and the symmetry of the truth re- 
vealed to us in the Word. No doubt they did. But after 
all admissions are made, it is still a fact that their religion 

29 



450 THE PILGRIMS 

was characterized by an earnestness and sincerity, by a 
sense and token of reality, by a grip on conscience and 
conduct, and an all-aroundness of application which dis- 
tinguishes it sharply from the current conceptions and 
illustrations of religion in their day and gives to it a high in- 
spirational and exemplary value. Their religion was of the 
sort which enabled them to endure hardship, to work right- 
eousness, and to lay the fotindation of a mighty nation. 
Nothing was so dear to them as their religion. Nothing in 
their bearing so struck those who met them and took note 
of their spirit and conduct as the quiet, sustaining and 
compelhng force of their religion. They never had to be 
cross-questioned to enable one to find out that they were 
disciples of the Master. 



ni 

The Pilgrims laid great stress on righteous character. 
So much has been implied, and, in one form and another, 
stated in what has gone before. But it is a 
Great fji^t which stands out by itself; and it is so 

stress on marked and suggestive that it may well receive 
righteous distinct recognition. 

character Had the Pilgrims been asked to put into 

definite language what they conceived to be the 
highest object of human endeavor and the true aim of life, 
they would have anticipated the shorter catechism, and, in 
slightly altered phrase, said that it is to know and do the 
will of God. Had they been pressed still further and re- 
quested to reduce to a concrete setting their conception of 
the practical statement or outcome of knowing and doing 
the will of God, their quick answer would have been — 
character. 

They sought to translate their faith and their sense 
of duty into character. They aimed to be intelligently and 
consistently moral. Clean living, uprightness, truthfulness, 
integrity reaching from heart's core to finger-tip, loyalty to 
principle, conscience at the front dominating conduct, were 
counted by them essential to any true idea, or any true reali- 



THE PILGRIMS 451 

zation, of manhood. No achievement was of so much con- 
sequence in their estimation as character. No losses seemed 
so great to them as losses in moral standing. Nothing 
humiliated and burdened them like lapses from virtue. 
They were great sticklers for the homely old virtues of 
honesty, fair dealing, sincerity, and manly decency. They 
would not equivocate. They would not dissemble. They 
would not misrepresent. No Hes were permitted to blister 
their tongues. Cheating and defrauding were not among 
their methods of accumulation. They hatched no cunning 
schemes of money-making whereby they might empty other 
pockets and fill their own. Their hands were never soiled 
with ill-gotten gains. They were often the victims of " high 
finance," and they suffered much from extortion ; but they 
never retaliated in kind. They evaded no obligations. The 
repudiation of a debt never marred their records. There 
were few crooked dealings and unjust transactions to burden 
their memories and irritate their consciences. If in a couple 
of instances they went astray — once in the early years, 
and again when the colony had passed into the keeping of 
the second generation — in their dealings with the Indians, 
and did what they ought not to have done, the only thing to 
be said is, that, in the first case, they made ample and satis- 
factory amends for the wrong done, while in the other the 
mistake, when made, was beyond repair and evermore to be 
regretted. 

"Not faultless were they, else were they not men; 
Yet less their own the faults than of their time." 

But their ideals were pure hearts and clean hands. Their 
yea was yea and their nay was nay. They knew how to 
endure bad treatment and injustice; but they were children 
in malice, and they had no disposition to secure revenge and 
inflict pain. 

There were individual exceptions to the average high 
standing of the Pilgrims in their moral conduct. Not all 
of them were equally impatient of impurity, iniquity, and 
injustice. The story of a couple of the company is exceed- 
ingly sad and distressing. 



452 THE PILGRIMS 

One of the leaders became recreant to the trust which 
was reposed in him by his associates. He became connected 

with these people at Leyden. At the outset and 
A dishon- fQj. ^ long time he was honored and efficient, 
est and jpoT the first three years in which Bradford 

dishonored j^^gjj ^j^g office of governor, he was the chief 
leader executive's sole assistant. Important business 

interests were intrusted to him ; and he was 
frequently sent abroad to make loans, adjust accounts, and 
purchase goods. He was one of the men who assumed re- 
sponsibihty for the debt incurred when the colonists bought 
out the Adventurers in 1627. But avarice became his 
master passion and ruined him. He fell through love of 
gain. Two things, however, are to be said about this man. 
He was the only one of the prominent members who ever 
brought the blush of shame to the colony by a betrayal 
of confidence and flagrant dishonesty. Having gone wrong, 
he soon found the atmosphere of the Pilgrim settlement 
uncongenial. He left the place and " died insolvent in 
reputation and estate." 

After having lived ten years on these shores, another 
member of the colony was tried, convicted, and solemnly 

executed for murder. He came across in the 
Hiing for Mayflower. His name is in the list of the im- 
murder mortal forty-one who signed the Mayflower 

Compact. He shared in the division of the 
Pilgrim properties. The Pilgrims must ever bear a meas- 
ure of the odium which attaches to his name. But while 
he was a Pilgrim in this way, he was yet not a Pilgrim. 
Recall what Bradford says of him : " He and some of his 
kind had been often punished for miscarriages, being one of 
the profanest families amongst them. They came from 
London, and I know not by what friends shuffled into their 
Company." There is no evidence that he had ever had the 
least training in Pilgrim ideas, or had ever shown the least 
sympathy with Pilgrim views. The Pilgrim spirit was 
foreign to his nature and habit. He was among them, no 
doubt, for the reason that some Adventurer, who was an 
Adventurer for revenue only, had thrust him into the com- 
pany, either to get rid of him, or because he thought 



/ 



THE PILGRIMS 453 

another pair of stout hands would increase the chances of 
better returns for the money invested in the enterprise. 
He was a bad man at the start, and he was a bad man all 
through. He well deserved his fate. But in no particular, 
save in name and accidental association, was he ever a Pil- 
grim. He lived and died " a knave." 

There were times when social vices prevailed to some ex- 
tent. In his "History" Bradford opens the record of events 
for 164<2 with a bitter wail. The colony had 
Social then been in existence more than two decades ; 

vices and our author did not attempt to disguise the 

chagrin and pain he felt over the situation. 
" Marvelous it may be to see and consider how some kind 
of wickedness did grow and break out here." He specified 
*' drunkenness and uncleanness," and some things "fearful to 
name." It is a dark picture as the colors are laid on by the 
brush of this white-souled painter. Were one to read just 
so much and no more of what the chapter contains, he might 
conclude that the state of affairs was something dreadful, 
if not utterly hopeless. One would infer that some people, 
reading this book, have stopped at this paragraph. 

Naturally Bradford was solicitous to ascertain the causes 
of what seemed to him an apalling outbreak of immorality. 
He found them in " our corrupt nature," in the 
Causes of « spite " of the devil against the churches, in 
this out- ii^Q long restraint under which " wickedness " 
break }^ad been " more nearly looked unto " and 

" stopped by strict laws," and which made it all 
the more violent and reckless when it did break out, and 
in the fact that sins were there " more discovered and seen " 
than in other places. 

This latter explanation of a condition of things which 
brought so much sadness to the Pilgrim governor is worth 
considering. Bradford himself seems to have been a bit sur- 
prised when he came upon it, and led to question whether 
after all he had not been exaggerating the evil side of things, 
and expressing more alarm than what was actually going 
on, called for, or warranted. " Here," so he says, " here is 
not more evils in this kind, nor nothing near so many by 
proportion, as in other places; but they are here more 



454 THE PILGRIMS 

discovered and seen, and made public by due search, inquisi- 
tion, and due punishment ; for the Churches look narrowly 
to their members, and the magistrates over all, more strictly 
than in other places." 

The Pilgrims were sensitive to moral evil in all its forms. 
Indiscretion, trivial offences, tendencies which had a down- 
ward look, indulgences, which might grow into 
Sensitive [^.^j habits and undermine character, as well 
to moral ^s gross iniquities, were apt to fill them with 
®"^ fears and create apprehension of much worse 

things to come. Often it required sober second 
thought, and such comparisons as were instituted in the 
paragraph just quoted, to correct these unfavorable conclu- 
sions, and make it plain that vice and crime were not in the 
ascendant. These men had a hard battle to fight ; but it 
was with forces outside rather than inside of their colony. 

Further on in the narrative which covers the period for 
1642, Bradford asks the pertinent question : " But it may be 
demanded how came it to pass that so many 
Additional wicked and profane people should so quickly 
lighten come over into this land?" The governor's 

the proh- answer is illuminating. There were many 
l*™- things to be done. Buildings were to be erected, 

lands were to be cleared, agricultural opera- 
tions were to be carried on, and improvements were to be 
pushed. Employers had to take such help as they could get. 
Hence many " untoward servants " were brought over and 
set to work — " both men and women kind, who, when their 
times were expired, became families of themselves." This 
helped to lower the general average of the standing of the 
community. 

This was not all, however. In that high tide of migra- 
tion which swept toward America in the ten years from 1630 
to 1640, the business of transporting " passengers and 
their goods " became active, and competition was sharp. 
Ships were chartered for these voyages, and to " advance 
their profits," the masters took anybody aboard who " had 
the money to pay them." " By this means the country 
became pestered with many unworthy persons, who, being 
come over, crept into one place or another." 



THE PILGRIMS 455 

This is Bradford's explanation of the increase in wicked- 
ness which he saw about liim, and wihich brought him such 
keen distress. It was the fresh importations from England 
of apprentices, servants, laborers of one grade and another, 
and the coming in upon them of restless, roving adventurers, 
that swelled the sum total of vice and crime. A study of 
the criminal records of the colony with a view to ascertain- 
ing who were prosecuted and punished for wrong-doing 
will justify this statement. The particular case which filled 
the mind of Bradford with so much apprehension had its 
location in this class. In this way the Pilgrims have had 
to bear a great deal of unjust criticism. Men hko Lyford 
and Rogers, the one an unmitigated rascal and the other 
the victim of an eccentric and unbalanced brain, have been 
called their ministers and charged up to the account of the 
Plymouth colonists; but neither one of them was ever a 
Pilgrim, and neither one of them was ever pastor of the Pil- 
grim church. From first to last the Pilgrims never failed 
to show their abhorrence of iniquity, and to make evident 
their deep and abiding purpose to live clean lives. 

Ill-considered and unwarranted statements have some- 
times been made to the effect that these colonists were 
mainly intent on material ends and making sure of things 
which were to their own advantage. 

The Pilgrims had three tasks set to their hands. They 
had to make a Hving. They had to pay their debts. They 
had to build up their homes and their institu- 
Whatthey tions. Had their financial circumstances been 
had to do jj^ch better than they were, either one of these 
tasks would have been a tremendous challenge 
to their faith and courage. All three of them together 
would seem to have been enough to dishearten tlie most 
resolute. Their living must be wrung out of the soil and 
the sea. Their debts could be paid only by patient toil, wise 
planning, slow accumulation, and the most distressing econ- 
omy. Their institutions could be built up only by such over- 
plus of strength and the fruits of industry and thrift as 
was left after the more immediate obligations of making a 
living and paying debts had been mot. To accomplish 
these objects they sought to increase their resources by en- 



456 THE PILGRIMS 

tering into trade with the Indians, and with other people 
who might be induced to traffic with them. Working along 
this line they gathered and sent abroad such products and 
commodities as would bring a remunerative price in foreign 
niarkets. This is the explanation of their apparent ab- 
sorption in material gains. They were where they were at 
*' great cost." 

But why efforts like these, for ends like these, should be 
thought to indicate the presence and sway of motives no 
higher than the ordinary wordly motives by which men are 
controlled does not seem clear. On the contrary, working 
hard to make an honest living, paying debts down to the 
last farthing, taxing brain and hand and heart for the wel- 
fare of coming generations, would appear to be conclusive 
proofs of an unselfish regard for the good of others. 

One might as well say that selling houses and lands and 
other possessions, and arranging long and diligently for 
passage across the sea to Holland, were transactions which 
indicated a dominating worldly spirit when these about-to- 
be exiles were planning to leave Scrooby. Or, again, one 
might as well say that weaving, carpentering, candle- 
dipping, hat-making, baking bread, setting type, and the 
other occupations which thoy pursued in order to earn a 
living, filled the minds of the Pilgrims to the exclusion of 
other thoughts and aims there at Leyden, as to say it of 
them at Plymouth, when, with intense eagerness, they were 
bending their utmost energies to such employments as prom- 
ised to set them on their feet, and aid them in making good, 
alike for themselves and their posterity, their great hope 
and purpose of a church and a state founded on the basis of 
democracy. 

These insinuations of a predominantly worldly spirit in 
the Pilgrims are unworthy and unjust ; and the estimate of 
their character which rests on this view fails 
Altruistic altogether to measure up to their moral stature, 
aims and ^]\q interest shown by them in worldly indus- 
lofty trios and business enterprises stood for some- 

character thing quite other than all-absorbing regard for 
worldly gain. They were men of pure intent 
and lofty spirit. Things honorable in the sight of the wise 



THE PILGRIMS 457 

and good, things manifestly approved of God, things in 
which posterity might rejoice, were constraining motives 
in their Hves. Their Hvcs were hard, self-denying and full 
of toil ; but they were sweet. They were sweet, because, 
like the heavens over them, they were sweetened by the 
breath of God. Ocean winds kept their bodies full of ozone ; 
and the winds of the Spirit kept their hearts full of health 
and vigor. They could toil when so faint that they stag- 
gered in the fields ; they could starve ; they could die : 
but they would not barter away their souls, nor lower their 
standards of character. Temptations beset them, as they 
beset all men everywhere; but the solicitations of ease and 
earthly pleasure and worldly gains and ends other than 
those which bear the stamp of divine approval, were never 
enticing enough to lead them to strike the flag of their in- 
tegrity and come to terms with unrighteousness. They had 
no respect for theories of life which are not exacting; and 
they knew that they could maintain their own self-respect 
and the approval of conscience only by walking uprightly, 
working righteousness, and speaking the truth in their 
hearts. Tested by any rational standard of loyalty to God, 
by any generally accepted code of Christian ethics, and 
by any worthy conception of patriotism, it will be found 
that the business dealings and daily lives of the Pilgrims 
reached high levels and revealed motives which cannot be 
resolved into terms of materialism. Character was what 
they aimed at ; and character of a sterling type was what 
they achieved. 

IV 

The Pilgrims emphasized the faithful discharge of duties 
to the state. Conscientious in the conduct of their homes, 
in the management of their business, and in 
Empha- j-}^g practical expression of their religion, they 

sized civic were conscientious in the performance of their 
duties poHtical obHgations. 

This was a natural outgrowth of their views 
of the state, and of the attitude which they thought all good 
citizens ought to take towards the state. For these founda- 



458 THE PILGRIMS 

tion-layers of the republic held that the state, like the 
church, is a divine institution. It has on it the stamp 
of divine authorit3\ It is the bond by wliich 
The state society is held together, and the condition of 
a divine progress in intelligence, wealth, power, and 

institution happiness. It is set up not that the few may 
be exalted and the many degraded, but that 
there may be order and a fair chance for each well-disposed 
person to go his way and do liis work and enjoy the rewards 
of his toil and thrift. 

With this view entertained by them of the origin and pur- 
pose of the state, it is not difficult to see in what estimate 
they would hold the laws which might be passed by the state. 
It was not simply that a few men had come together and by 
a majority vote had expressed an opinion on some matter 
of public interest ; but, done by the constituents of the state 
and in the name of the state and for the welfare of the 
state, the act was lifted out of the realm of mere opinion 
and clothed with a kind of divine sanction. It is not difficult, 
either, to see what sort of measures they would seek to have 
enacted into laws. It would be only such as they deemed to 
be in accord with the divine will. A law out of line with Grod 
would have seemed to them simply monstrous. They did 
not hold that the voice of the people is the voice of God; 
but they did hold that the voice of God ought to be the 
voice of the people. 

Entertaining these views, the Pilgrims insisted that 
every man should meet the full measure of his public obliga- 
tions and bear his full share of the public bur- 
All bound dens. They made equal rights and the liberty 
to help q( ^y^q individual the corner-stone of their politi- 

cal edifice because they conceived this to be in 
closest accord with the thought of God and the dignity of 
man. But while they claimed equal rights and conceded lib- 
erty on this high ground, they also did it in the confident ex- 
pectation that under this system of government men would 
take more interest in public affairs and be more thoughtful 
of the good of the commonwealth- They saw the value of 
civic pride ; and this was the way taken by them to insure 
and cultivate the spirit of patriotism — they gave every 



THE PILGRIMS 459 

man a voice in making and administering the laws, and then 
they held every man responsible to the limit of his ability for 
all demands made upon him by the state. Opportunities 
were opened to all and burdens were distributed to all. It 
was not on the few but the many that the state was made to 
rest; and it was not the few alone but the many who were to 
see to it that no harm came to their little republic. Men of 
the largest abilities and widest experience, and who were 
most deeply engrossed in private affairs, might not plead ex- 
emption when called to serve the pubhc; and men of the 
smallest capacity and the least influence and with the least at 
stake might not hide under their insignificance when called 
upon to express their views through the ballot. Citizenship 
was at a premium. In tracing the development of their gov- 
ernment we have seen how men were fined for refusing to 
exercise the elective franchise, or for declining to hold an of- 
fice to which they had been elected; and how towns lost 
standing by neglecting to have their representatives at the 
general court. It was the way these Pilgrims had of em- 
phasizing their sense of the obligation every citizen of the 
state is under to meet and discharge the full measure of his 
duties to the state. 

It would be foolish to try to disguise the fact that right 
at this point where the colonists were wise and strong, 
many citizens of our great nation are sadly 
Present- wanting. It has been forgotten that citizen- 
day short- ship carries with it responsibilities as well as 
coming privileges, and that no man who means to be 

loyal to the flag may evade these responsibih- 
ties. The outlook is hopeful. There is an increasing sense 
of the responsibihties of citizenship. Both as respects the 
conscientious use of the ballot and willingness to turn aside 
from lucrative occupations for a while to fill important 
official positions, there have been marked gains in these later 
years. Still there is much to be desired. There is a class 
of men for whom the state, through its schools, its orderly 
arrangements, its just laws and its encouragement of fore- 
sight, industry and thrift, has done more than it is possible 
to schedule, who hold themselves quite above the duty of 
trying to secure the best men for office, or even of taking 



460 THE PILGRIMS 

pains to vote on election-day. When it is suggested to 
these men that they take their turn at bearing the burdens 
and meeting the obligations of public station, they toss their 
dainty noses high in air and wreath their faces with smiles 
of lofty disdain. Pressure of business, disinclination to 
mingle with the begrimed and noisy crowds which are sup- 
posed to infest the polling-booths, engagements at the 
club, fondness for books and the pursuit of culture, and the 
mild attractions of shppered ease, are allowed to override 
duties to country; and large numbers of inteUigent and 
virtuous citizens, who ought to count it at once a sacred duty 
and a high privilege to take some positive part in giving 
right direction to public affairs, when the battle is on 
sHnk away like cowards, and then attempt to justify their 
action by confessions which are shameful impeachments of 
their patriotism. Public duties are not to their taste. The 
idea of serving is ignored. 

Now and then some shocking exposure of graft fills these 
overdainty citizens with a momentary horror and startles 
them out of their criminal lethargy. It is more 
Spasms than likely, however, that the sudden burst of 

of zeal indignation will be only the flash of a few shav- 

ings on fire, or a rumble of thunder which 
brings no rain. When the next election-day comes round, 
or the next petition to hold an important office is presented, 
the same old excuse of pressing private duties, or pleasure, 
or intended absence from home, will be offered, and the state 
will be left to get on as best it can. 

If this were all, the situation would not be so bad. But 
there are instances in which the neglect assumes criminal as- 
pects. Men of financial standing and of large 
Neglect influence in the community, men who are con- 
assumes cemed in important industrial projects in the 
criminal shape of public utihties, refuse to hold office on 
aspects ii^Q ground that they cannot afford the time 

and strength for such service. But they have 
time and strength, through their agents, directly and indi- 
rectly, to bribe officials of easy virtue, in order to secure 
what they want. In justification of their disreputable 
doings they say it is " necessary," or " cheaper," to do this 



THE PILGRIMS 461 

than to make an open fight for franchises. Hence we have 
corrupt aldermen, corrupt representatives, corrupt con- 
gressmen, and corrupt officials all along the line. There 
would be no purchasable officials if there were not some- 
body to purchase them. There would be no " boodlers " if 
there were no supply of " boodle." The bribe-taker ought 
to be set in the pillory and branded with contempt ; but by 
his side, with the edge of the pillory-board a httle closer to 
his neck, and the scorn of the public a great deal sharper, 
there ought to be the bribe-giver. It is useless to try to 
improve things with men who are hungry for spoils, if no 
notice is taken of men who shirk their fair share of public 
burdens and buy their way to advantages on which they 
may fatten at the public expense. 

It is in vain to look for a return of the simplicity of the 
early days when the people were few and poor, and the aim 
of the leaders was so unselfish and high. All 
Cannot ^j^g game, the cure for a large number of our 

expect present evils lies in a general and genuine re- 

return vival of the patriotic spirit and deep sense of 

of old obligation to serve which characterized the 

simplicity members of the Plymouth colony. The men 
who might be leaders must consent to lead. 
Influential men must be ready to vote and to hold office. 
From first to last the Pilgrims kept their best men at the 
front in the administration of public affairs. From first 
to last the best men in the colony took a practical interest 
in public affairs. On what other plan than this can our 
cities, our several states, and the nation at large, ever 
expect to deal successfully with the gangs of thieves and 
robbers who scheme their way into our legislative bodies, or 
haunt the lobbies and force all who would gain their ends to 
drop shining coins into their political slot-machines.'' In 
our civic affairs we need the reinstatement of the Plymouth 
Rock conscience. 

This means that there must be an elevation of our stand- 
ards in all departments of life. Sharp dealing in business, 
frenzied financiering, systematic tax-dodging, corruption 
in social circles, extortion brought about by the creation 
of monopolies and the stifling of wholesome competition, 



462 THE PILGRIMS 

trampling on the Ten Commandments on the ground that 
they are antiquated, and relegating the Sermon on the 

Mount to the Mmbo of impracticable conceits. 
Elevation y^[\\ \qs^^ to all sorts of intrigues and conspira- 
of our (.jgg fQj. defrauding the state. It is illogical 

standard ^q look for an improved public sentiment until 

there has been an improvement in individual 
living. With a rejuvenescence of moral sense in the indi- 
vidual, and a settled determination to do business on the 
basis of honesty and straightforwardness, with our homes 
made sweeter and our social life lifted to a higher plane, 
and with our churches alive with the purpose to win men to 
God and to build them up in righteousness, we may reason- 
ably expect to see less selfish plotting, less buying and sell- 
ing of votes, less corrupt use of patronage, and less coming 
short of all sorts in the administration of public affairs. 



The Pilgrims were sensitively alive to the future. They 
planned, they toiled, they made sacrifices, for the future. 
They could face perils, rise superior to hard- 
Sensitively ships and sorrows ; but they could not be indif- 
alive to ferent to the future. One of the urgent reasons 

the future for leaving Leyden was the welfare of their 
posterity. Another was the hope of doing some- 
thing, even though it were only to make themselves " step- 
ping-stones unto others," to propagate the gospel and set up 
the kingdom of Christ in these remote parts. It was always 
something out ahead of them which stirred their imagina- 
tions, quickened their pulses, and impelled them to action. 

The Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony were not aggres- 
sive in the same way and to the same extent as were the 
Puritans of the Bay colony. The late Dr. 
Not as Byington, in his book on the Puritan, has a 

aggressive chapter in which he institutes a comparison of 
as the tj^g contributions made by the two colonies to 

Puritans the subsequent development of the laws and 
institutions of the land on whose shores they 
settled. It is needless to say that the comparison is 



THE PILGRIMS 463 

marked by intelligence, candor, and general fairness. He 
claims much for the Puritans, as is just; and he concedes 
much to the Pilgrims, which is their due. In his view " the 
influence of the Puritans upon New England has been 
greater in some respects than that of the Pilgrims." He 
asserts that " the intellectual life of New England, and 
much of the best religious life, has come from them." He 
makes the further and more significant statement that " the 
energy, the enterprise, the pohtical sagacity, the genius for 
creating new types of government," are our inheritance 
from the Puritans. On the other hand, he admits that " the 
beauty, the poetry, of New England have come, in great 
part, from those who landed at Plymouth Rock. They have 
taught the world a larger tolerance, gentler manners, purer 
laws." These, it may be said again, are intelligent and 
careful estimates, and in the main they are sound, 

A careful study, however, reveals somewhat more than is 
here conceded to go to the credit of the Pilgrims. In their 
habit of returning to first principles and build- 
More to ing on them, and in looking forward and 
credit weighing actions by their probable bearing on 

of the i]^Q future, the Pilgrims did some things which 

Pilgrims were more important to New England, to the 
whole land, and to the world, than were ever 
(done by the Puritans. Nothing needs to be deducted from 
the priceless services rendered by other colonies on these 
shores ; but there are particulars in which the contribu- 
tions of the Pilgrims to the progress of mankind have no 
parallel in value. 

Neither in numbers, nor in wealth, nor in learning, nor 
in capacity for such achievements as are conditioned on 
numbers and wealth and learning, were the 
Besources Pilgrims equal to the Puritans. The Pilgrims 
limited were constrained by their location and their 

pecuniary circumstances to a narrower life 
than the Puritans. It was the Puritans who started a 
college so soon after their arrival in New England, though 
the Pilgrims were intensely interested in education and lent 
their aid to this institution. So long as the Bay State 
endures, Harvard will be a standing monument to the re- 



464 THE PILGRIMS 

gard entertained by the founders of the Bay colony for 
sound learning. It was the Puritans who pushed out their 
settlements the more rapidly and took possession of wider 
areas of country. It was the Puritans who very early had 
their ships on the high seas, laden with their wealth-yielding 
cargoes. It was the Puritans who were thorns in the sides 
of royalty, and who were always giving trouble to high 
officials in church and state. 

Nevertheless, when it comes to such fundamental and far- 
reacliing qualities as " political sagacity," and " the genius 
for creating new types of government," it will 
Achieve- be found that the Pilgrims must be accorded 
ments in seats far in front of all competitors, 
government n ^^s the Pilgrims, and not the Puritans, 
remarkable ^]^q discovered and announced the principles of 
democracy on which Massachusetts, New Eng- 
land, and the great repubKc were to build their institutions. 
The simple document, signed in the cabin of the ship which 
brought Carver and his company across the Atlantic, has 
been the directing and most vital force in the politics of the 
nation from the day on which it was drafted until now. 
Nothing ever done by any colony reached so far down into 
the heart of things political, and so far out into subsequent 
years, as the issuing of the covenant by which the Pilgrims 
organized themselves into " a civil body pohtic " on the 
broad basis of the equal rights of man. 

It was the Pilgrims again, and not the Puritans, who, 
looking backward and then forward, brought to light and 
set up a genuine Congregationalism. The theory of a self- 
governing church was something which Endicott, at Salem, 
had to learn from Fuller, at Plymouth ; and which the Bay 
colony had to relearn from the Old Colony. Dr. Bying- 
ton concedes both these claims. " The Pilgrims," so he 
says, " had a Colony well organized and governed accord- 
ing to democratic principles, and a Church organized after 
the Congregational way before the Puritans came." The 
concessions are large ones. With so much settled all else in 
church and state alike were matters of detail. 

It was the Pilgrims once more, and not the Puritans, who 
exemplified the most advanced toleration of the time. If 



THE PILGRIMS 465 

Roger WlUIams did not learn his principles of toleration 
from the Pilgrims, he might have done it. They were tol- 
erant towards him when he was intolerant towards them; 
and he left Plymouth because he was not able at that time 
to mount to the high table-land of appreciation and for- 
bearance which they occupied. 

It may be doubted whether there has been another group 
of men in all history who were charged at once with the 
responsibihty of state-building and church-building, who 
laid the foundations of these two structures so broadly, and 
with such a far, wise look into the future, as this httle band 
of Pilgrims who set foot on Plymouth Rock in 1620. What 
is more, they not only laid the foundations broadly and 
wisely, but their superstructures, political and ecclesias- 
tical, when completed, were found to be consistent with the 
ground plan. The latter end of their commonwealth did 
not forget the beginning. We are living in the to-morrow 
which these simple, but far-visioned seers and statesmen 
foresaw and for which they wrought. We are to do to-day 
with all fidelity each bit of work which hes at our hands. 
This will make our next day brighter, and by so much set 
the world forward. We shall still lack something, however, 
of the Pilgrim spirit, if, in the conduct of our schools and 
colleges, in the ordering and working of our churches, in 
the direction we give to our domestic, social, and industrial 
economies, in the management of our philanthropic and 
missionary organizations, and in the framing of our laws 
and the shaping of our pubUc policies, we do not keep 
steadily in mind the welfare of those who are to live 
after us. 

" O, Thou Holy One and Just, 
Thou, who wast the Pilgrim's trust. 
Thou, who watchest o'er their dust. 

By the moaning sea; 
By their conflicts, toils and cares. 
By their perils and their prayers, 
By their ashes, make their heirs 

True to them and Thee." 



INDEX 



Abbott, Bishop George, 156. 
Accessions to Pilgrim colonists, 245, 

248, 251, 272. 
Acorns, parched, found, 207. 
Act of Supremacy, 22. 
Act of Uniformity, 21. 
Adams, John, 183. 
Adams, John Quincy, 119, 183. 
Adams, Samuel, 48, 368. 
Adventurers. See Merchant Ad- 
venturers. 
Agawam, 208, 357. See Ipswich. 
Amsworth, Rev. Henry, 101, 141; 

life and writings, 108, 109; on 

Smyth, 107. 
Alden, John, 182, 199, 258, 271, 345, 

•388. 
Alden, Priscilla Mullins (Mrs. 

John), 258. 
Alexander, Pokanoket Indian, son of 

Massasoit, 413. 

Allerton, , sailor, 208. 

Allerton, Fear Brewster (Mrs. 

Isaac) 333. 
Allerton,' Isaac, 124, 128, 130, 162, 

254. 265, 271, 301, 315, 452; visits 

England, 269, 333; secures new 

agreement with Adventurers, 270; 

opens trading-post, 279. 
Alva, Duke of, 25. 
Ames, Dr. Azel, v, 166, 179, 186, 190, 

255 ; on Martin, 179. 
Amicis, Edmondo de, 96. 
Amsterdam, Scrooby fellowship in, 

96-105 ; reasons for settling in, 98 ; 

EngUsh-speaking people in, 100; 

Separatist dissensions at, 103; 

"Ancient Church " in, 101 ; reasons 

for leaving, 102, 110. 
Anabaptists, Holland, influence of, 

10. 
Anawan, surrender of, 418, 422. 
"Ancient Church," Amsterdam, 101; 

Ainsworth pastor of, 109; Scrooby 

fellowship with, 111. 



"Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth" 
(Davis), 357. 

Andrews, , 281. 

Andros, Sir Edmund, 348, 405, 427, 
430. 

Anne, the ship, 251, 254, 255, 267, 
268, 272, 354. 

"Annotations" (Ainsworth), 108. 

"Apparators," 87, 97. 

Apple-trees in Plymouth Colony, 258. 

Aragon, Catherine of, 20. 

Arber, Edward, v, 84, 127, 229. 

Archangel, the ship, 298. 

Armada, the Invincible, 24. 

Arminian and Calvinistic contro- 
versy, 135, 136. 

Arminius, 119, 135. 

Arnold, Gov. (Conn.), 387. 

Arrival at Cape Cod, 192. 

Arrows, Indian, 210, 292, 311, 423. 

Arson, 366, 370. 

Art, in Leyden, 118. 

Articles of Agreement, 159, 264, 265, 
269; modified, 161: ratification re- 
fused, 161; readjustment of, 268, 
270. 

Articles, Thirty-Nine, the, 22. 

Artisans, Dutch, in England, 8. 

Ashley, Edward, 279, 284. 

Ashurst, Sir Henry, 432. 

Assembly, legislative, 374, 397. 

Assistants to governor, 364, 374, 375, 
377. 

Atwood, John, 285. 

Augusta, Me., trading-post at, 277, 
278. 

Augustus, Emperor, 24. 

Austerfield, Eng., birthplace of Brad- 
ford, 71. 

Babington conspiracy, the, 69. 
Bacon, Dr. Leonard, v, 2, 84; on 

Browne, 42; on Street, 349; oa 

King Phihp, 410. 
Bacon, Lord, 23. 



468 



INDEX 



Ballot-box, importance of the, 376. 
Bancroft. George, v, 242; on "High 

Commission," 22; on Maj'flower 

Compact, 198. 
Banishment, 89, 332, 389. 
Baptism, 107, 328, 335, 336, 339, 340. 
Barley, Pilgrims raise, 309. 
Barnstable, Mass., 283, 346, 349, 373, 

405. 

Barrowe, , 25, 102, 104, 105, 141. 

Barry, John Stetson, v, 18, 380, 394. 

Bartlett, ;, v. 

Baskets, Indian, found by settlers, 

207. 
Bass, fishing for, 357. 

Bassett, , 122, 345. 

Bay Colony. See Massachusetts Bay 

Colony. 
"Bay Psalm-book," 256. 
Bayard, Thomas F., 96. 
BayUes, Francis, v, 262, 288, 318, 

365, 368. 
Bays. See Plymouth, Massachusetts, 

Narragansett, etc. 

Beachamp, , 281. 

Beads, for trading, 247; wampimi, 

275. See Wampum. 
Beans, a food staple, 252 ; baked, 258. 
Beaver, 247, 266, 267, 277, 285, 286. 
Bedlam, Separatist meetings at, 54. 
Beecher, Henry Ward, 48. 
Beef, scarcity of, in Plymouth, 254, 

257. 

Beers, Capt. , 420. 

Bell, first church, 338. 

BeU Alley, Leyden, 120, 127, 132. 

Bernard, Richard, 143. 

Berries, wild, a soiu-ce of food supply, 

247, 258. 
Beverages, Pilgrims', 254. 
Bible, the, 6, 13, 107, 329, 356, 444, 

445 448. 
BiUington,'john, 178, 196, 371, 452. 
BiUington, John, Jr., 304. 
Billington, Mrs. John, Sr., 372. 
Birth, first (at sea), 188. 
Births, in Holland, 139. 
Blankets, for trade ^-ith Indians, 277. 
Blaxland, G. Cuthbert, 170. 
"Bloody Mary." See Mary Tudor. 
Boleyn, Anne, 20. 
Book of Acts, 32. 
Book of Common Prayer, 21. 
Books, 47, 104: printed in Leyden, 

127, 134; of Quakers, 387. 



Boston, Eng., port of, 90. 

Boston, Mass., 256, 257, 403, 428, 
430. 

Boston Bay, 216 ; Indians of, 314. 

Boston church, the, 336. 

Boston Common, execution on, 390. 

Boston Harbor, 306. 

Boundaries of Plj-mouth Colony, 277, 
395, 399. 

Bourne, , missionary to Indians, 

417. 

Bow Churchyard, Separatists at, 45. 

Bowls, Indian, found, 206, 207. 

Boyle, W. H. W., 324. 

Bradford, Alice Southworth (2d 
Mrs. Wm.), 258. 

Bradford, Dorothy (1st Mrs. Wm.), 
218. 

Bradford, William (PUgrim), v, 71- 
74, 123, 126, 130, 162, 166, 201, 
203, 208, 237, 251, 257, 258, 271. 
274, 315, 329, 343, 345, 354, 383, 
400; early life and education, 72; 
joins Separatists, 73; Cotton 
Mather on, 74; his wife's death, 
218 ; illness of, 231 ; receives pat- 
ent, 277, 367; intercepts letters, 
332; commissioner, 397. 

Quotations: 52, 84, 102, 121, 
122, 123, 124, 148, 149, 150, 151, 
166, 175, 178, 199, 211, 212, 216, 
222, 232, 238, 245, 301 ; on perse- 
cution at Scrooby, 87, 88 ; on de- 
parture for Holland, 90, 91, 92, 
93 ; on Smj'th, 106 ; on Cushman, 
128; on Robinson debate, 136; on 
Lej'den church, 142, 146 ; on leav- 
ing Holland, 167; on Maj-flower 
Compact, 196 ; on fishing, 248 ; on 
cattle, 255 ; on articles of agree- 
ment, 270 ; on Billington, 178, 452 ; 
on newcomers, 280 ; on debts, 286 ; 
on Hunt's capture of Indians, 
298; on Squanto, 299, 300; on 
Brewster's ministry, 329 ; on Ly- 
ford, 330; on Rogers, 333; on 
Rev. Ralph Smith, 335 ; on Roger 
Williams, 337; on Norton, 338; 
on schools, 353; on social xices, 
453, 454. 

Bradford, WiUiam, Jr., 354. 

Bradstreet, Gov. Sunon, 406, 430. 

Braind, , Quaker, 389. 

Branding culprits, 372. 

Bread, 246, 247, 251. 



INDEX 



469 



Brewer, Thomas, 124, 126, 135. 

Brewster, Fear, 333. 

Brewster, Jonathan, 345. 

Brewster, Love, 345. 

Brewster,William (Elder), 58, 76, 121, 
123, 126, 127, 129, 134, 141, 155, 
166, 182, 232, 258, 271, 326, 329, 
334, 336, 340, 343, 354, 400; organ- 
izes and leads Scrooby Separa- 
tists, 60, 70; early hfe and char- 
acter, 65; with Davison, 66-70; 
post at Scrooby, 70; "Seven Ar- 
ticles," 163; "Instances of Induce- 
ment," 163; ministry to the 
Pilgrims, 327, 333; removes to 
Duxbury, 345. 

Bridewell, the, prison, 55. 

Bridgewater, Mass., 350, 420, 421. 

"Brief Account of Disciphne in the 
Scotch Church" (Calderwood), 
127. 

"Brief Narration" (Winslow), 168. 

Bristol, Me., 294. 

Brookfield, Mass., siege of, 419. 

Brown, Dr. , v; on Brovrae, 41 ; 

on Winslow, 125. 

Brown, John, 32, 398. 

Brown, Peter, 235, 236. 

Browne, Dorothy Boteler, 38. 

Browne, Francis, 38. 

Browne, Philip, 38. 

Browne, Robert, 54, 76, 105, 141; 
life and teaching, 38-40 ; character 
of, 40-46 ; writings, 47^9. 

Brownists, the, 41, 56. 

Bryant, WilUam Cullen, 222. 

Bulls, brought into Plymouth Colony, 
254, 255. 

Burgomasters, Leyden, petition to, 
112. 

Burial Hill, Plj-mouth, 233, 259. 

Burleigh, Lord, 22, 38. 

Burning, Protestants, 24; witches, 
382. 

Bury St. Edmunds, 25; Robert 
Browne at, 39. 

Bushnell, Horace, 324. 

Butler, , 123. 

Butten, William, 188. 

Butter, scarcity of, 173, 251, 258, 295. 

Buzzards Bay, 276. 

Byington, Dr. , v, 462. 

Cadiz, Spain, 24. 
Calderwood, David, 127. 



Calves. See Cattle. 

Calvin, John, 9. 

Calvinism vs. Lutherism, 140. 

Cahinist and Arminian controversy, 
135, 136. 

Cambridge, Eng., 38, 39. 

Cambridge, Mass., 348. 

"Cambridge Concordance" (New- 
man), 349. 

"Cambridge Platform," the, 348. 

Campbell, Douglas, v, 114. 

Campen, Holland, Separatists at, 
101. 

Cannon, mounted on platform at 
Plymouth, 229. 

Canonicus, sends challenge to Pil- 
grims, 311, 312. 

Cape Cod, 293, 294, 303. 357, 417; 
sighted by Pilgrims, 189 ; Pilgrims 
land at, 200 ; explorations on, 201- 
219; harbor of, 216. 

Capital crimes, 370, 387, 390. 

Captain, office of, Plymouth militia, 
284. 

Captain's HilL, Duxbury, 345. 

Carter, Robert, 178, 180. 

Cartier, explorer, 185, 233. 

Cartwright, Thomas, 35-37, 38, 47, 
141. 

Carver, Gov. John (Pilgrim), 124, 
126, 130, 162, 179, 180, 187, 199, 
208, 235, 237, 243, 301, 302; first 
governor, 125; agent, 155; dies, 
229 ; his wife dies, 229. 

Castine, Me., 279, 284. 

Catherine de Medici, 66. 

Catherine of Aragon, 20. 

Catholicism, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 140, 
150. 

Cattle, in Plymouth, 254 ; division of, 
255 274. 

Cham'plain, explorer, 185, 218, 233. 

Chapels, forbidden by Ehzabeth, 26. 

Character, moral, importance of, to 
Pilgrims, 450, 451, 456. 

Charity, the ship, 254, 255. 

Charles II, 254, 320, 382; ends per- 
secution of Quakers, 390; grants 
Connecticut charter, 398. 

Charles V (Spain), 96. 

Charleston, S. C, 342. 

CharlestowTi, Mass., 280. 

Charter, Connecticut's, 398. 

Charter, Massachusetts Bay's, 336, 
428, 432. 



470 



INDEX 



Chatham, Mass., 299. See Mono- 
moy. 

Chaucer, 12. 

Chauncey, Charles, 339, 348; pres. 
of Harvard, 340. 

Cheese. See Dairy products. 

Cheever, George B., v, 194, 214. 

Children of Pilgrims, in Holland, 139, 
149, 150; number of, 243, 354; 
born on Mayflower, 188, 229; 
deaths among, 232, 354; training, 
353, 354. 

Chilton, James, 219. 

Choate, Isaac Bassett, 146. 

Choate, Rufus, 222, 234. 

"Christian Fellowship" (Robinson), 
137. 

Christian Indians ("Praying" Indi- 
ans), 417, 418. 

Christison, Wenlock, 389. 

Chronology, systems of, 75. 

Church, Capt. Benjamin, 319, 405, 
418, 419, 421. 

Church, in Amsterdam, 103 ; in Ley- 
den, 141-143; in Plymouth, 324- 
350, 400, 437-450. See Sabbath 
observance. 

Church government, 446; Thomas 
Cartwright on, 36; Francis John- 
son on, 104, 105; system of, Ley- 
den, 140-143; "Seven Articles," 
162; Roger WilUams on, 336; 
Charles Chauncey on, 339. 

Church of England, 76, 163, 336, 339. 

Churches, Old Colony, Plymouth, 
53; "Ancient," Amsterdam, 101; 
"Pilgrim Fathers," 102; St. Peter's, 
Leyden, 117, 118, 120; St. Helen's, 
Austerfield, 72. 

Citizenship, in Holland, 139; in 
Plymouth, 403, 458, 459. See 
Freemen. 

Civic duties, 376-378, 457-460. 

Clams, a staple of food, 248, 258; 
clam shells used for wampiun, 275. 

Clapboard, 183, 266, 267. 

Clark, Nathaniel, 429, 431. 

Clark, William, 420. 

Clarke, , mate, 208. 

Clarke, Gov. Walter (R. I.), 430. 

Clark's Island, 211, 213, 214, 215, 
217, 224, 225, 429, 431, 443. 

Clement VH, Pope, 20. 

Clink, the, prison, 55. 

Clothing, 244, 245, 296. 



Clyfton, Richard, 62-64, 73, 76, 109. 
Code of Laws, framed, 367. 
Coles Hill, Plymouth, 233. 
College. See Harvard. 
Collier, William, 179, 345, 403. 

Collins, , 123. 

Colonies, Confederation of New 

England, 395-407. 
Colonists, Weston's, 247, 312, 317. 

See Plymouth Colonists. 
Colony. See Plymouth, Mass. Bay, 

Conn., etc. 
Colts. See Live stock. 
Commission of peers, 69. 
Commissioners, Colonial, 386, 397, 

398, 405 ; King's, the, 320. 
Committee on Indian troubles, 315. 
Committee on laws and statutes, 367. 
Committees of public safety, 430. 
Common, Boston, 390. 
Common-house, 228, 235, 237, 239. 
Communion, 328, 335, 339, 340. 
Communism at Plymouth, 249. 
Compact. See Mayflower Compact. 
Confederacy, the Pokanoket, 301, 

305, 311, 417. 
Confederation, the New England, 

395-407; reasons for, 395, 396; 

basis of, 397, 403; revised articles 

of, 398, 406; benefits from, 399- 

402, 404, 406. 
Conference meetings, introduced, 

344. 
Confession of Faith, the Church of 

England, 163 ; the Separatist, 108. 
Confession of witchcraft, 381. 
Conformity, conflict of Dissent with, 

19 seq. 
Congregationalism, 10, 41, 43, 44, 

142, 324, 464. 
" CongregationaUst, The," 324. 
Congregationahsts, early English, 10, 

44, 45. 
Connecticut, capital crimes in, 370; 

witchcraft in, 382; joins confeder- 
ation, 395 ; colonial commissioners 

of, 397, 398; charter of, 398. 
Conspiracies, the Babington, 69; 

Captain Jones' alleged, 190, 191 ; 

Indian, 311, 312, 313, 314; against 

Robinson, 329; of Lyford and 

Oldam, 331. 
Constitution, the EngUsh, 23. 
Constitution, the Pilgrims', 195. 
Constitution of the United States, 32. 



INDEX 



471 



"Constitutional History" (Hallam), 

20. 
Consumption, 231. 
Controversy, Lutheran and Calvin- 

istic, 135, 136, 140. 
Conventicles, forbidden by Elizabeth, 

26. 
Convocations, 21, 163. 
y" Cook, Francis, 258. 
/ Cook, John, 258. 

Cooke, , 293. 

Cooper, 182. 

Copeland, , Quaker, 389. 

Coppin, , mate, 208, 209. 210. 

Copping, John, 25. 
Corbitant, 305, 306, 307. 
Corn, Indian, taken from Indians, 
202, 203, 206, 293, 303, 304, 
318; planting, 244, 250; drought 
threatens, 251, 252; Ught crop, 
246 ; traded with Indians, 277. 
Correction, House of, built for im- 
prisonment of Quakers, 387. 
Cotton, Rev. John, 340, 347, 348. 
Cotton, Rev. John. Jr.. 340-342, 343, 

344, 348. 
Council, governor's, the, 428. 
Council for New England, The, 154, 
190, 197, 269, 277. See Plymouth 
Virginia Company and Merchant 
Adventurers. 
Council of Oxford, the, 32. 
"Counterpoyson" (Ainsworth), 108. 
Court. See General Court. 
Court of Election, the,^^ 375. 
Courts, " commissarie," 87, 97. 
Courts, formation of, 365. 
" Courtship of Miles Standish " 

(Longfellow), 131. 
Covenant, Chief Philip's, 414. 
Coverdale, 6, 7, 8. 
Cows, in Plymouth Colony, 254, 255, 

256. 
Crab-shells, baskets made of, 207. 
"Cradle of a Commonwealth." 198. 
Crandon, Edwin S., 52. 
Cranmer, 34. 

Crimes, 370. 371, 386, 454, 455. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 12, 28, 126, 349. 

Cudworth, , 283. 

Currency, wampum used as, 275, 

277, 429. 
Cushman, Isaac, 342. 
Cushman. Mary Allerton (Mrs. 
Thomas). 258. 



Cushman, Robert, 122, 124, 128, 129. 
130. 162, 176, 179, 249, 319 ; agent, 
155; concludes agreement with 
Adventurers, 161, 172; arrives at 
Plymouth. 244. 265; on Lyford, 
330. 

Cushman, Thomas (Elder), 259, 340. 
354. 

Cuthbertson, . 123. 

Dairy products. 251, 257. 258, 295. 
Dartmouth. Eng.. Pilgrims put in at, 

175. 
Dartmouth, Mass., 319; Indian at- 
tacks on, 419, 420. 
Dartmouth Indians, the, 318. 
D'Aulney, 284. 

Davenport, Rev. John, 347, 349. 
Davis, Dr. O. S., v, 137. 
Davis, William T., v, 194, 357, 362. 
Davison, WiUiam, 66-68, 70. 

Day, , the Harvard printer, 256. 

"Day of humiliation," 252, 404. See 

Fast days. 
"Day of thanksgiving," 253. See 

Thanksgiving Day. 
De Monts, 233, 234. 
De Tocqueville, Alexis, 362, 363. 
Death penalty, the, 370, 387, 390. 
Deaths, at sea, 188; at Cape Cod, 

218, 233; first year, 180, 229, 230. 

231, 232, 234. 
Debt, to Merchant Adventurers, 262- 

286, 455; imprisonment for, 372; 

for Phihp's War, 423. 
Declaration of Independence, the, 

368. 
Declaration of rights, the, 368. 
Deer, 203, 248, 258, 310. 
Deerfield, Mass., Indian attack on, 

419. 
Deity, Pilgrims' conception of and 

reverence for the, 438-441. 
Delfshaven, 166, 167, 327. 
"Democracy in America" (De 

Tocqueville), 363. 
Democracy in Plymouth Colony, 198, 

199, 371, 373, 374, 402, 431, 458, 

464. 

Dennison, , 406. 

Deptford, Eng., Separatist meetings 

at, 54. 
Deputies to general court, 373, 377. 

Dermer, Capt. , 298. 

Dexter, Prof. Franklin Bowditch, v. 



472 



INDEX 



Dexter, Henry Martyn, v, 170. 

Dexter, Morton, v, 99, 114; on 
Cartwright, 36; on Browne, 43; 
on Sm^h, 100 ; on Winslow, 126 ; 
on debts, 286. 

Dexters, the, v, 146. 

Dickinson, J. W., on schools, 352. 

Disease, 188, 231, 233, 291, 295. See 
Sickness. 

Disfranchisement, 376; of Quakers, 
386. 

Dissent, conflict of Conformity with, 
19 seq. 

Dissenters, 89. 

"Dissuasion Against Separatism Con- 
sidered" (Robinson), 77, 106. 

Dorchester, Mass., 348. 

Dotey, Edward, 178, 199, 208, 371. 

Douglas, James, 362. 

Douw, Gerard, 118. 

Dover, N. H., 338. 

Draper, Andrew S., on schools, 352. 

Drill, miUtary, 309. 

Drought, the great, 251. 

Ducks, 205, 244. See Mallard. 

Duel fought in Plymouth, 178, 371. 

Dunnmg, Dr. A. E., 436. 

Dunster, , pres. of Harvard Col- 
lege, 340. 

Dutch, immigration and influence in 
England, 8; population in Eng- 
land, 9; offer aid to Leyden fel- 
lowship, 157; send horses to Bos- 
ton, 256 ; settlement at Manhattan, 
274, 284. 

Duxbury, Mass., 258, 345, 348, 356, 
367, 373. 

Dyer, Mary (Mrs.), 390. 

East Anglia, Congregationalists in, 
41. 

East Halton Skitter, port of depar- 
ture, 91. 

East Harbor, Cape Cod, 202. 

Eastham, Mass., 209, 292, 304, 321, 
346, 348. See Nauset. 

Eaton, , 355. 

Eaton, Samuel, 258. 

Ecclesiastical Establishment of Eng- 
land, 22. 

Edward VI, 19, 34. 

Eels, Capt. , 319. 

Elder, the Ruling, 341, 342. 

Elders in church government, 141. 

Election, Court of, 375. 



Eliot, John (apostle), 288, 347, 417. 

Elliott, Charles W., v, 18, 413. 

EUis, George Edward, 394. 

EUzabeth, Queen, 9, 59, 70, 71, 153; 
and Protestantism, 19 seq.; her at- 
titude explained, 26 seq. 

Elizabethan era, 23. 

Ely, , sailor, 178. 

Endicott, Gov. , 130, 343. 

"England and Holland of the Pil- 
grims, The" (Dexter), 62. 

EngUsh, , sailor, 208. 

Enghsh laws, 89, 363, 365, 366. 

"English Sieparatism" (Macken- 
nal), 6. 

Englishmen kiUed by Indians, 293. 

Episcopacy in Plymouth, 331. 

Episcopius, 135. 

Equahty, political. See Democracy. 

Estabhshed Chiu'ch. See Church of 
England. 

Estates, administration of, 366. 

Evarts, Wilham M., 324. 

" Exercise of Prophecy " (Robinson), 
137. 

Explorations of Pilgrims, 201-203, 
204-208, 209-212, 218. 

Explorers, early, of New England, 
218. 

Exposing Indians' heads, 316. 

Extension, church, 344. 

Family training among the Pilgrims, 
354. 

Famines, at Plymouth, 245, 247, 250, 
251. 

Fast days, at Leyden, 166 ; at Plym- 
outh, 252, 253, 259, 404. 

Faunce, — - (Elder), 429. 

Finance, Pilgrims, at Leyden, 154 
seq.; troubles at Southampton, 172; 
troubles at Plymouth, 262-286 ; in- 
dorsers of, 271, 273; readjustment 
of, 272; pohcy of, 273. 

Fines, 372, 376, 377, 385, 386, 429. 

Fire, 237, 239; law against setting, 
366. 

"First Encounter," the, 210, 293. 

"First Sickness," the, 180. 

Fish, 207, 226, 244, 258, 268. 

Fisher, George P., 2. 

Fishing, 155, 160, 247, 248, 285, 357, 
366. 

Fishing-fleet aids Pilgrims, 246. 

Fishing-grounds easily accessible, 224. 



INDEX 



473 



Fishing-smack, French, wrecked, 293. 

Fiske, John, v, 222, 233, 426; on 
EngUsh Bible, 6 ; on Philip's War, 
410. 

Fitz, Richard, 45, 54. 

Fleet, the, prison, 55, 104. 

Food, 244, 247, 253, 257, 258; scar- 
city of, 245, 250, 251. 

Forefathers' Day, 217. 

Forgery of deeds, 372. 

Fort, the first, in Plymouth. 228, 326. 

Fortune, the ship, 244, 248, 265, 271, 
354, 405; captured. 267. 

Fotheringay Castle, Queen Mary im- 
prisoned at, 69. 

Fowl, 203, 248, 258, 309. 

Fox, George, 384. 

FrankUn, Benjamin, 48. 

Free Church martyrs, first, 25. 

Free schools, 352, 357, 358. 

Freedom of the press, suspended, 
428. 

Freedom of worship, denied, 339, 
428. 

Freemen, 365, 374, 375, 376, 403, 430. 

French raids in Maine, 279, 284. 

Fresh Water Pond, Cape Cod, 202. 

Friends, Society of, 384. See Quakers. 

Frobisher, Martin, 185. 

Froude, , on Queen Elizabeth, 

26. 

Fruit, abundance of, in Plymouth, 
258. 

Fuller, Bridget, 355. 

Fuller, Dr. Samuel (Pilgrim), 123, 
124, 129, 130, 162, 166, 199, 258, 
271, 308, 343, 354; will of, 256. 
Furs, 267, 268, 295; first shipment 
of, 266; trade with Indians for, 
277. 

Gabriel, the ship, 185. 

Gainsborough, 75, 90; Separatist 
church at, 53, 60, 78 ; memorial to 
Robinson, 94 ; Separatists in Am- 
sterdam, 102. 

Game, a staple of food, 247, 258. 

Garrison, WiUiam Lloyd, 48. 

Garrison-house, Clark's, 420. 

Gates, Gov. (Va.), 182. 

Geese, wild, 205. 

General Court, the, 365, 367, 376, 
386, 398, 403, 404; formation of, 
373, 374. 

"G«ueral History" (Smith), 158. 



Geneva, 13, 36. 
George III, 196, 432. 

Glover, (Rev.), 337. 

Glover, , printer, 337. 

Goats brought to Plymouth, 255, 257, 

274. 
"Good News from New England 

(Winslow), 126. 
Goodman, John, 235, 236. 
Goodwin, John A., v, 277, 286, 338, 

426, 433; on Hopkins, 182; on 

Alden, 183; on first exploration, 

202; on site of settlement, 216 ; on 

wampum, 275; on Indians, 288; 

on treaty with Massasoit, 301 ; on 

Treat's funeral, 321. 
Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 190, 191, 

197, 293, 298. 
Gorton, Samuel, 335. 

Gosnold, , 189. 

Gospel, the, 395 ; to the Indians, 288, 

320. 
"Gospellers," the, 44. 
Government of Plymouth Colony, 

195-199; 362-378; 402-404; 406, 

431. 
Governor, office of, 364, 374, 375, 

377, 428, 430. 
Grady, Henry W., 436. 
Grass, silk, 207 ; wild, 244. 
Graves, 206, 233 ; Indian, 202. 
Greenleaf, Thomas, 390. 
Greenwood, John, 25, 102, 104, 135. 
Griffis, Dr. William Elliot, v, 8, 67, 

84, 116, 117, 275. 
Grotius, 119. 
Groton, Mass., 419. 
Guiana considered for settlement, 

152. 
Guild, Curtis, Jr., 194. 
Guilds, tradesmen's, in Holland, 139. 

Hadlet, Mass., Indians attack, 419. 
Hale, Sir Matthew, beUever in witch- 
craft, 382. 
Halifax, Mass., burned, 420. 
Hall, Jonathan Prescott, 288. 
Hall, Pilgrim, 217. 
Hall, Plumber's, 45. 
Hallam, Henry, 20. 
Hamden, John, 313. 
Hampden, John, 813. 
Hancock, John, 48. 
Handmaid, the ship, 354. 
Hanging. 24, 382, 390. 452. 



474 



INDEX 



Harbor, 207, 231. See Plymouth, 
Boston, etc. 

Harding, Sewell, 394. 

Hartford, Conn., 349, 371. 

Harvard College, 340, 356, 401, 463. 

Harvest festival, the first, 308. 

Harvests, the Pilgrims', 246, 247, 251, 
252, 253, 285, 309. 

Hatchets traded to Indians, 277. 

Hatherly, Timothy, 179, 281. 

Hawkins, , 23. 

"Head and Heels," 389. 

Heifers. See Cattle. 

Hemans, Felicia, 194. 

Henry IH (France), 66. 

Henry VH, 58, 184. 

Henry VIH, 19, 20, 23, 33, 34, 38, 59. 

Herrick, George M., 436. 

Herring, fishing for, 357. 

Hertfordshire, Eng., 35. 

"High Commission for Causes Ec- 
clesiastical," 22, 23. 

Hildreth, Richard, v, 242. 

Hill, Burial, Plymouth, 233. 

Hill, Captain's, Duxbury, 345. 

Hill, Coles, Plymouth, 233. 

Hill, Study, Pawtucket, 420. 

Hill, Watson's, Plymouth, 301. 

Hinckley,Gov. Thomas, 405, 430, 433. 

"History" (Bradford), 212, 301, 346, 
352. 

•' History of New England " (Palfrey), 
355. 

"History of New Plymouth" (Bay- 
hes), 365, 368. 

"History of PljTnouth" (Thacher), 
357. 

Hoar, George F., 288, 403. 

Hobomak, 305, 307, 313, 314, 315. 

Holland, civil and religious Uberty in, 
10, 11, 97; Anabaptists in, 10; ar- 
rival of exiles in, 94 ; an asylum for 
the persecuted, 97 ; Pilgrims leave, 
166 ; immigrants from, 274. 

Holmes, , charged with witch- 
craft, 383. 

Holmes, Ohver WendeU, 170. 

Hooker, Rev. Thomas, 347. 

Hooper, John, 33-35. 

Hopkins, Giles, 258. 

Hopkins, Mark, 324. 

Hopkins, Oceanus, 188, 229. 

Hopkins, Stephen, 178, 181, 196, 199, 
201, 208, 256, 295 ; visits Massasoit, 
302, 308. 



Horace, 24. 

Horses brought into Plymouth Col- 
ony, 255, 256. 

Hospital, the first, 229. 

HospitaUty of the Pilgrims, 245, 249, 
280, 295, 296, 301, 309, 343. 

House of Correction, 387. 

Houses, 228, 244, 254, 309. 

Howland, Elizabeth Tilley (Mrs. 
John), 258, 354. 

Howland, John, 166, 187, 208, 255, 
257, 271, 355. 

Hubbard, , v, 131. 

Huckleberries, 258. 

Hudson, , 189. 

Hudson River, 189, 190, 274. 

Huguenots, the, in France, 27. 

HuU, Eng., port of, 91. 

Humber River, 91. 

Hunt, Capt. Thomas, 292, 297. 

Hunter, Joseph, v, 194. 

Hunting, 309 ; laws concerning, 366. 

Huss, John, 2, 14. 

Hutchinson, , v. 

Hyde, John Nevins, 52, 

"Hypocricy Unmasked" (Winslow), 
126. 

Idle River, 90, 91. 

Immersion. See Baptism. 

Immigration, 245, 248, 251, 272, 454; 
Dutch, 8, 9. 

Immorahty in Plymouth Colony, 
453-455. 

Imprisonment, of early Puritans, 24, 
25 ; of Browne, 42 ; of Separatists, 
54, 55; of Mary, Queen of Scots, 
69; of Davison, 70; of Scrooby 
Fellowship, 90, 91, 93 ; of Winslow, 
126; of Brewer, 127; of debtors, 
372; of Quakers, 389. 

Incorporation of towns, Plymouth 
Colony, 373. 

Indians, 209, 211, 224, 229, 236, 237, 
239, 366, 396; first seen by Pil- 
grims, 202; Pilgrims take corn of, 
202, 203, 206, 293, 303, 304, 318; 
Pilgrims trade with, 247, 277, 279, 
285, 296, 303; "First Encounter" 
with, 210, 292, 293 ; conflict with, 
315, 316, 317; Pilgrims' relations 
with, 288-322 ; plague among, 291, 
295 ; Hunt's capture of, 292, 297, 
298 ; welcome Pilgrims, 294 ; visit 
PUgrims, 296, 297, 300, 308, 310; 



INDEX 



475 



treaty with, 301, 305, 310; gospel 
carried to, 288, 320, 321, 341, 417 ; 
massacres bj^, 293, 326, 419, 420; 
conspire against settlers, 311, 312, 
313, 314; abused by Weston's 
colonists, 312; sold into slavery, 
318; facing extinction, 412; popu- 
lation of, 416; unite in Philip's 
War, 417 ; Christian or " Praying," 
417, 418. See Phihp's War. 

Individual labor, system of, 250, 274. 

Indorsers, financial, for the Pilgruns, 
271. 

Industrial policy at Plymouth, 249, 
253. 

Ingham, IMrs. , alleged witch, 383. 

"Instances of inducement," 163, 164. 

Interest, high rates of, 265, 269, 270. 

Investment of Merchant Adventurers, 
158, 180. 

Ipswich, Mass., 208, 338. See 
Agawam. 

Islington, Separatist meetings at, 54. 

Jackson, Richard, 80. 

Jacob, Henry, 102. 

Jacob, the ship, 254. 

James I, 66, 124, 154, 155. 363 ; pro- 
tests Separatist printing in Holland, 
127; refuses rehgious freedom in 
America, 156 ; witchcraft persecu- 
tion under, 382. 

James II, 426, 427. 

Jamestown, Va., 233. 

Jenney, John, 272, 283. 

Jennings, , 123. 

Jenny. See Jenney. 

Jessop, Francis, 80, 123. 

John, King (Eng.), 58. 

"John Robinson" CDavis), 137. 

Johnson, Capt. , 420. 

Johnson, Francis, 141, 173; m Lon- 
don, 54 ; in Amsterdam, 101 ; 
career of, 104, 105. 

Jones, Capt. . 190, 219. 224, 238; 

aUeged bribery of, 197, 290; heads 
expedition, 204-206; practises ex- 
tortion, 247. 

Jones River, 224. 

Jury, trial by, 363, 365. 

"Just and Necessary Apology " (Rob- 
inson), 137. 

"Justification of Separatism from the 
Church of England" (Robinson), 
137. 



Keith, (Rev.), 350. 

Kennebec River, trading-posts on, 

277, 279, 284. 
Kettle, found on first exploration, 

202. 
KilUgrew, Sir Henry. 66. 
King. John, bishop of London, 156. 
King's Bench Prison, 127. 
Kingston, Mass., 224, 225, 226. 
Kloksteeg, the, Leyden, 120. 
Knives, 247, 277, 297. 
Knox, John, 7. 

Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. 

See Thomas Cartwright. 
Lambs. See Live stock. 
Lancaster, Mass., Indians attack, 

419. 
Land, division and allotment of, 160, 
250, 273; grant to Allerton, 279; 
deahngs with Indians, 288, 319, 
320; titles, 428. 
Landing, first, at Cape Cod. 200; at 
Clark's Island. 211; at Plymouth 
Rock, 216, 223. 

Langemore, , servant, 178. 

Lathrop, Capt. , 420. 

Latimer, 7, 34. 

Laud, Archbishop, 126, 339, 348. 

"Lawfulness of Plantations" (Cush- 

man), 319. 
Laws, EngUsh, 89, 363, 365, 366, 370, 

429. 
Laws, Plymouth Colony, 195, 362- 
378, 429, 438, 459. 462. 463; on 
school question. 356. 357 ; trial by 
jury. 363; administration of, 364; 
no code of. 365. 366; code of, 
adopted. 367 ; declaration of rights, 
368; penal, 370; civil, 373; on 
voting. 376 ; on holdmg office. 377 ; 
against Quakers, 385-387; on 
treatment of Indians, 321, 366, 
396. See Government of Plymouth 
Colony. 
Lecky, W. E. H., on witchcraft, 380. 

Leddra, . Quaker, 389. 

Lee, , 123. 

Lee. Rev. Samuel. 349. 
Legislation. See Laws. 
Leo X. Pope, 33. 
Letter, Robinson's farewell, 173. 
"Letter Book" (Bradford), 158. 
Letter of de Rassiere to Bradford, 
274. 



476 



INDEX 



Letters, 244, 265, 268, 329, 388; in- 
tercepted, 332. 

Leyden, 114-143; memorial to Rob- 
inson at, 94, 118; history of, 117; 
museum and art in, 118; univer- 
sity, 119; exiles' meeting-house in, 
120, 121 ; printing in, 134 ; theo- 
logical debate in, 135; Congrega- 
tionalism at, 142; departure of 
Pilgrims from, 166, 167. 

Leyden church, 325, 326 ; the "Seven 
Articles," 162 ; government formu- 
lated, 140-143. 

Leyden fellowship, 114-143; their 
meeting-house, 120, 121 ; voca- 
tions of, 122, 139; accessions to, 
124-133; marriages among, 138, 
139; become citizens, 139; formu- 
late church poUty, 140-143; con- 
template removal from Leyden, 
148; reasons for leaving Leyden, 
149-151; decide on Virginia, 153; 
their petition refused, 156 ; receive 
patent, 156 ; refuse Dutch offers of 
aid, 157; their "articles of agree- 
ment," 159; secure ships, 162; 
hold religious services before de- 
parture, 166; leave Leyden, 167. 
See Scrooby fellowship. Pilgrim 
Fathers, and Plymouth colonists. 

Leyden Street, Plymouth, 228. 

Leyden University, 114, 119, 126, 
127, 135. 

"Life of Brewster" (Steele), 65. 

Liquor. See "Strong water." 

Lister, Edward, 178, 371. 

Literature, beginning of American, 
129. 

Little, Rev. Ephraim, 344. 

Little James, the ship, 251, 256, 272, 
354 ; captured, 268. 

Live stock in Plymouth, 254-257; 
division of, 255, 274. 

Lobsters, 251, 258. 

Lochleven, Mary, Queen of Scots, 
imprisoned at, 69. 

Lollards, the, in England, 5. 

London, 9, 25 ; Separatist church in, 
54; Congregationalists in, 44-46. 

London Separatists in Holland, 101. 

London Virginia Company, 154, 196 ; 
Pilgrims negotiate with, 155; 
grants patent to Pilgrims, 156. 

Long, John D., 194. 

Long Point, Cape Cod, 192, 209. 



Longevity of Pilgrims, 258. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 18, 
131, 380. 

Lothrop, (Rev.), 349. 

Lowell, James Russell, 11, 32, 222, 
240. 

Lucas, E. v., 114. 

Luther, Martin, 2, 9, 14, 33v 

Lutherism vs. Calvinism, 140. 

Lyford, Rev. John, 329-333, 455; 
servility and deception of, 330; 
conspires with Oldam, 331 ; ban- 
ished, 332 ; not pastor of Plymouth 
church, 334. 

Macaulat, Thomas Babington, 18. 
Mackennal, Dr. Alexander, v, 6, 45, 

52; on Browne, 41, 43. 
Mackerel, fishing for, 357. 
Magistrates, 336, 363, 365. 
"Magna Charta," 14. 
Maize, 202, 216. See Com. 
Majority rule in Plymouth, 363, 364. 
Mallards, 295, 296. See Ducks. 
Manhattan, Dutch at, 274, 284, 382. 
Mann, Horace, on schools, 352. 
Manomet, trading-house at, 276. 
Manor house, Scrooby, refuge of 

Separatists, 58-62. 
Mansfield, Lord, believer in witch- 
craft, 382. 
Manual of arms, drill in, 309. 
Margaret, Queen (Scotland), 58. 
Marlborough, Mass., destruction of, 

419. 
Marriages among Leyden fellowship, 

138, 139. 

Marshall, Capt. , 420. 

Marshfield, Mass., 283, 345, 356, 

373. 
Martha's Vineyard, missionaries in, 

417. 
Martin, Christopher, 178-180. 
Martyrs, early church, 25. 
Marvell, Andrew, 99. 
Mary, Queen (wife of William of 

Orange), 434. 
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, 69, 70, 

71. 
Mary Tudor, Queen ("Bloody 

Mary"), 20, 23, 24, 329. 
Maryland, witchcraft a capital crime 

in, 382. 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, trades 

with Plymouth, 257; ministers of. 



INDEX 



477 



334 336, 338, 340, 347 ; schools in, 
340, 356, 358, 359, 401, 463; capi- 
tal offenses in, 370; w-itchcraft m, 
382; Quakers in, 386, 387, 389, 
390, 391 ; population of, 395 ; in 
confederation of colonies, 395, 397, 
398, 401, 403, 405, 407; military 
quota of, 397, 398 ; disputes boun- 
dary with Plymouth, 399, 400; 
early form of government in, 375; 
in Philip's War, 410, 414, 416, 417, 
418, 419, 420; under Andros, 428; 
reseats Gov. Bradstreet, 430; 
charter, 428, 432; Puritans of, 
compared with Pilgrims, 462-465. 

Massachusetts Confederacy (Indian), 
291, 306, 311. 

Massachusetts Historical Society, 214. 

Massacres, Indian, 293, 326, 419, 
420. 

Massasoit, 297, 299, 304, 305, 311, 
315, 319, 413; visits Pilgrims, 300, 
308, 310 ; Pilgrims visit, 302, 313 ; 
plot against, 306. 

Masterson. , 123. 

Mather, Cotton, on Bradford, 74. 

Mather, Increase, 432. 

Mather, Richard, 348. 

Mats, Indian, found on Cape Cod, 

207. 

Mayflower, the ship, vi, 180, 218, 219, 
223, 229, 230, 255, 265, 294, 354, 
404 ; hired, 162 ; at Southampton, 
171; sails from England, 177; 
description of, 183-185; number 
on board of, 185, 188; arrives at 
Cape Cod, 192; returns to Eng- 
land, 238-240, 243. 

Mayflower Compact, the, 195-199, 
215, 364, 367, 375, 464; text of, 

" Mayflower, The — Her Log, 
(Ames), 179. . 

Mayhews, the, missionaries to In- 
dians, 417. 

McKenzie, Alexander, 114. 

Meadows held in common by Pil- 
grims, 273. 

Meal, scarcity of, 244, 245. 

Medfield, Mass., Indians attack, 419. 

Medici, Catherine de, 66. 

Meeting-house, 326, 338. 

Meetings, conference and prayer, 
344 ; town, 428. 

Melanchtbon, 2. 



Memorial, to Robinson, 94, 118; on 
Clark's Island, 214; to Cotton, 
342. ^., . 

Men, number of, in Pilgrim com- 
pany, 185, 243. 
Mendon, Mass., abandonment ot, 

419. 
Merchant Adventurers, 128, 157, 
158 244, 282, 283; articles of 
agr^ment with, 159, 161, 264; 
debt of Pilgrims to, 262-286; de- 
lay in remittances to, 265; new 
agreement with, 268; Standish, 
Allerton, and Winslow negotiate 
with, 268, 269 ; Allerton's partner- 
ship with, 279; conspire agamst 
Robinson, 329, 331; conspu-e 
against Pilgrim democracy, 331. 

Middleborough, Mass., 305, 419, 
420. See Namasket. 

Middleburg, Zealand, 39, 42. 

Military duty, laws concerning, 366. 

Mihtary quota of colonies, 397, 398. 

Milk. See Dairy products. 

Mill, grist, built by John Jenney, 
283. 

Milton, John, 9, 18. 

Ministers, early New England, 327, 
330-344, 347-350. 

Ministry, ordination to the, 163. 

Missionaries to the Indians, 417. 

Mitchell, , 345. 

Mohawk River, Dutch on the, 274. 

' Mohegans, the, 410. c t a 

MoUusks, chief source of food 
supply, 247. 

Monhegan, Me., goats from, 257. 

Monomoy, 191, 299. See Chatham. 

Monopoly, trade, given to financial 
indorsers, 273. 

Monumet River. See Manomet. 

Moore, Jasper, 218. ,, 

"Morning Star of the Reformation. 
See WycUffe. 

Morton, , 123. 

Morton, John, v, 356. 

Morton. Nathaniel, v, 184, 190, 285, 

356, 401. 
Motley, John Lothrop, 96. 
Mounds, Indian, on Cape Cod, 202, 

206 
"Mourt's Relation," 201, 212, 230, 



Mowry, William A., on schools, 352. 
MuUins, Joseph, 180. 



478 



INDEX 



Mullins, Priscilla, 180. 
Mullins, William, 179, 180. 
Murder, 178, 370, 452. 
Museum, Leyden, 118. 
Muskets, 173, 414. 
Mystics, Pilgrims not, 447, 448. 

Naahden, Holland, Separatists in, 
101. 

Namasket, 305. See Middlebor- 
ough. 

Nantasket, Mass., 334. 

Nantucket, missionaries at, 417. 

Narragansett Bay, 291, 300. 

Narragansetts, the, 291, 302, 305, 
306, 311, 417, 419, 422. 

Nature, crimes against, 370. 

Naunton, Sir Robert, 155. 

Nauset, 292, 304. See Eastham. 

Nausites, the, 292, 297, 298, 304, 305, 
418. 

Neal, Daniel, v, 2. 

Negro Head, Cape Cod, 202. 

Neponsits, the, 411. 

Netherlands, the, religious contro- 
versies in, 27. See Holland. 

Nets, fishing, 357. 

Neville, Gervase, 80. 

New England, 188, 235, 317; first 
printed discourse in, 129; first 
child born in, 188 ; first landing of 
Pilgrims in, 200; early explorers 
of, 218; first free school in, 357. 

New England Confederation. See 
United Colonies of New England. 

"New England History" (Elliott), 
413. 

"New England Memorial" (Mor- 
ton), 184, 190, 401. 

New Haven, Conn., 347, 349, 370, 
395, 397, 398, 404. 

New Plymouth, 218, 228. See 
Plymouth. 

New York, 284, 387. 

Newcomen, John, killed by Billing- 
ton, 178. 

Newfoundland Company, the, 298. 

Newman, (Rev.), 349. 

Newgate, prison, 25, 55. 

Newport, Capt. , 233. 

Nipmucks, the, 417, 418, 422. 

Non-conformists, 8, 23, 46, 86, 87, 
89. 

Non-conformity, 3, 23. 

"Nook," Brewster's, 345. 



Norfolk, Eng., Separatism in, 6. 

Northampton, Eng., 40. 

Northfield, Mass., Indians attack, 
419. 

Norton, Humphrey, 387. 

Norton, John, 337. 

Norwich, Eng., 9, 39, 44, 46. 

Nuts, ground, a source of food sup- 
ply, 248. 

Old Colony. See Plymouth Colony. 

Old Colony church, 53. 

Oldam, John, 331, 332. 

Orange, Prince of, 25, 426. See 

William HI. 
Orchards, at Plymouth, 258. 
Otis, James, 178. 
Otter, 266, 285. 
Oxford,. Council of, 32. 

Paine, Robert Treat, 321. 

Palfrey, John G., v, 194, 288, 321, 
355, 382, 413. 

Pamet River, Cape Cod, 202, 205, 
207, 208, 209. 

Papacy, revolt from, 26. 

Parkman, Francis, 233. 

Parliament, the EngUsh, 20, 55. 

Parthenon, the, 24. 

Partridge, Ralph (Rev.), 348. 

Patent, Pilgrims attempt to secure a, 
155 ; granted by London Virginia 
Company, 156; to Pierce, 196, 
197; to Bradford, 277, 367; the 
Warrick, 278. 

Patuxet, 295. See Plymouth. 

Patuxets, the, 216, 291, 297, 300. 
319. 

Pawtucket, R. I., 420. 

Pecksuot, killed, 316. 

Peirce, Capt. Michael, 420, 421. 

Penalty, the death, 370, 387. 

Penalties. See Banishment, Fines, 
Imprisonment, Punishments, Ty- 
ing up, and Whipping. 

Penn, WilUam, 301, 371, 384. 

Pennsylvania, witchcraft in, 382, 383. 

Penobscot River, trading-posts on, 
279, 284. 

Penry, , martyr, 25, 102. 

Pequod War, the, 411. 

Pequods, the, 291. 

Perkins, Rev. William, 76. 

Persecution, of Separatists, 19-29; of 
Scrooby fellowship, 87-93; the 



INDEX 



479 



witchcraft, 381-383; of Quakers, 
383-391. 

"Perth Assembly" (Calderwood), 
127. 

Petition, to Leyden burgomasters, 
112; to Ehzabeth, 153 ; to James I, 
153. 

Philip (chief), 320, 410, 418, 419, 422; 
character of, 410, 413-415. 

Philip II (Spain), 9, 25, 96. 

PhiUp's War, 288, 401, 405, 411-423; 
causes of, 412; course of, 419; 
losses in, 421, 422; debt of, 423. 

Phillips, Wendell, 48. 

Phipps, Gov. William, 432 

Pickering, , 123. 

Pierce, John, 196, 367. 

Pierpont, John, 52. 

Pierson, (Quaker) 389. 

Pilgrim, the, 3, 8, 11, 12, 29. 

"Pilgrim Fathers," church of, Am- 
sterdam, 102. 

Pilgrim Fathers, leave Holland, 166 ; 
arrival at Southampton, 171 ; re- 
fuse to ratify articles of agreement, 
172; leave England, 175; acces- 
sions to, at Southampton, 177, 196 ; 
number of, 185, 188, 229; then- 
voyage, 186, 187 ; sight Cape Cod, 
188; compact of, 195; land on 
Cape Cod, 200; explorations, 201, 
204, 208; land of Plymouth, 217; 
health and longevity of, 258. See 
Leyden fellowship, Scrooby fellow- 
ship, and Plymouth colonists. 

"Pilgrim Fathers of New England, 
The" (Brown), 41. 

Pilgrim HaU, Plymouth, 217. 

"Pilgrun Press, The," 127, 134. 

" Pilgrim Repubhc, The" (Goodwin), 
301. 

"Pilgrims, The" (Bancroft), 22. 

"Pilgrims In Their Three Homes" 
(Griffis), 61. 

Pinnace, Pilgrims build a, 276. 

Pioneers, the Puritan, 32-49. 

Piscataqua River, trading-post on, 
277. 

Plague, in England, 269 ; among the 
Indians, 291, 295. 

Planting, 244, 250, 285. 

Platform, the Cambridge, 348. 

Platform, used as fort, 228. 

Plumber's HaU, Separatists in, 45. 

Plymouth, Eng., 177. 



Plymouth, Mass., 218, 225, 226, 228, 
346, 367, 373. 

Plymouth Bay, 216, 226. 

Plymouth Church, the, 325, 326 ; first 
meeting-house of, 326, 338; early 
ministers of, 327-342; conspiracy 
against, 331 ; prayer and confer- 
ence meetings in, 344; extension 
of, 344. 

Plymouth colonists, begin building, 
226; sickness ravages, 229-233; 
Rufus Choate on, 234 ; number of, 
243; troubles and hardships, 235- 
238, 244-252; accessions to, 245, 
248, 251, 267, 272, 280, 282; com- 
munism of, 249 ; accept new agree- 
ment with Merchant Adventurers, 
270; pay off debt to Adventurers, 
285; their relations with the Indi- 
ans, 287-322; their schools, 352- 
359; their religion, 438-465; See 
Scrooby fellowship, Leyden fellow- 
ship, and Pilgrim Fathers. 

Plymouth Colony, communistic sys- 
tem in, 259 ; live stock in, 254-257 ; 
trades with Bay Colony, 257 ; boun- 
daries of, defined, 277, 399 ; towns 
in, 373 ; joins confederation of colo- 
nies, 395; laws and legislation in, 
362-378; merged vdth Massa- 
chusetts Bay Colony, 342, 348, 398, 
404, 433; in Philip's War, 401, 
411-423; witches and Quakers in, 
380-391 ; under Andros, 428. 

Plymouth Harbor, 209, 216, 223, 
238. 

Plymouth Rock, vi, 195, 217, 240, 390. 

Plymouth Virginia Company, 154, 
197. See Council for New England. 

Plymton, Mass., 342. 

Pneumonia, 231. 

Pocassets, the, 305. 

Pokanoket Confederacy, the, 301, 
305, 311. 

Pokanokets, the, 300, 303, 413. 

Poliander, Prof. , 135. 

Pond, Fresh Water, 202. 

Pontgrave, , 185. 

"Popular Delusions "(Mackey), 382. 

Population, Dutch in England, 9. 

Population of N. E. colonics, white, 
395, 416; Indian, 416. 

Population of PljTnouth Colony, 229, 
245, 248, 251, 272, 346. 

Postmaster at Scrooby, 70. 



480 



INDEX 



Potatoes, 254. 

Poultry Counter, the, prison, 55. 

Prayer for rain, 252 ; Pilgrims believe 

in efficacy of, 442. 
Prayer-meetings, 344. 
"Praying" Indians. See Christian 

Indians. 
Prence, Gov. Thomas, 170, 271, 388, 

398, 405. 
Prince, Thomas, v, 170. See Prence. 
Printing, in Holland, 127, 134. 
Prison, the first in Plymouth, 278. 
Prisoners, seUing of Indian, 318. 
Prisons. See Fleet, Clink, Newgate, 

etc. 
Proclamation, Thanksgiving Day, 

309. 
Protestantism, 6, 140, 150. 
Protestants, 22, 24, 25, 27. 
Provincetown, Mass., 192, 202. 
Provisions, scarcity of, 245, 246. 

Prower, (servant), 178. 

Psalm-book (Ainsworth's), 108, 329. 
Punishments, 370, 371, 386, 387. 
Puritanism, 3, 14. 
Puritans, the, 3, 6, 8, 33, 88, 173, 396, 

463. 
"Pursuants," 87, 97. 

QUADEQUTNA, 300. 

Quakerism, appears in the colonies, 
381. See Quakers. 

Quakers, the, 283, 380-391 ; fanati- 
cism among, 384; legislation 
against, 385, 386, 387 ; persecution 
of, ends, 390. 

Quebec, Champlain at, 233. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 23, 56, 152. 

Rape, the crime of, 370. 

Rassieres, Isaac de, 274, 275. 

Ratcliffe, Separatists at, 54. 

Rationalists, Pilgrims not, 448. 

Rattlesnake skin challenge, the, 311. 

Rayner, John (Rev.), 338, 348. 

Recreations, at Plymouth, 309. 

Reformation, the, in Germany, 2 ; in 
England, 19-22. 

Rehoboth, Mass., 349, 399, 420. 

Reid, Whitelaw, on schools, 352. 

Religious attitude of the Pilgrims, 
438-450. 

"Religious Communion" (Robin- 
son), 137. 

Rembrandt, 118. 



Remittances to Merchant Adven- 
turers, delay in, 265 ; the first, 266 ; 
the second, 267 ; others, 267, 268. 

Reorganization, pohtical and finan- 
cial, in Plymouth Colony, 272, 273. 

Representatives. See Deputies. 

Reynolds, Capt. , 175, 176. 

Rheumatism, common among Pil- 
grims, 231. 

Rhode Island, 382. 

Ridley, 34. 

Robbing the Indians, 202, 203, 206, 
293, 303, 304, 318. 

Robinson, Isaac, 283, 285, 391. 

Robinson, John (Rev.), v, 75-80, 124, 
125, 127, 129, 132, 133, 142, 160, 
165, 166, 326, 327, 328, 329, 440, 
446; at Cambridge, at Norwich, 
takes orders, 76; becomes a Sep- 
aratist, 78; withdraws from State 
Church, 77; pastor of Scrooby 
Church, 78, 79 ; memorials to, 94, 
118; atLeyden, 109, 120; in great 
debate, 135 ; his writings, 137 ; his 
intellectual activities, 138; formu- 
lates church pohty, 142 ; on " ar- 
ticles of agreement," 160; "Seven 
Articles," 163; "instances of in- 
ducement," 163; preaches before 
departure of Pilgrims from Leyden, 
166; his letter of farewell, 173, 
446 ; on killing of Indians, 133, 316. 

Rochester, Robert, 80. 

Rogers, , 34. 

Rogers, (Rev.), 333, 334, 455. 

Rogers, J. E. T., 96. 

Rogers, J. Guinness, on Separatists, 
32. 

Roman Catholics, 26, 27. 

Rome, 13,24; See of, 22. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, on schools, 352. 

Rose, , 44, 54. 

Rough, John, 44, 45, 54. 

Rouse, John, 387. 

Rowlandson, Mrs. , 419. 

Rugs, 277. 

Rye, a staple of living, 258. 

Sabbath observance, 201, 204, 212- 

216, 224, 296, 443. 
Saco River, 291. 
Sacraments, administration of the, 

328, 335, 343. 
Saint Croix River, 233, 234. 
Saint Helen's Church, 72. 



INDEX 



481 



Saint John's College, Cambridge, 
i08. 

Saint Peter's Church, 117, 120. 

Saint Ursula Street, Leyden, 120; 

Salaries of deputies, 374. 

Salem, Mass., 256, 280, 336. 

Samoset, 181, 294-297. 

Sampson, Henry, 258, 345. 

Sandwich, Mass., 346, 373. 

Sandys, Sir Edwin, 59, 155, 163, 164. 

Santa Maria, the ship, 184. 

Scaliger, 119. 

"Scarlet Letter," the, 372. 

Schools, Plymouth Colony, 353-359 ; 
legislation concerning, 356; first 
common, 356, 357; support of, 
357 ; encouraged by union of colo- 
nies, 400. 

Scituate, Mass., 282, 340, 346, 367, 
373, 383, 405, 420, 421. 

Screw used to repair the Mayflower, 
186. 

Scriptures, the. See Bible and Tes- 
taments. 

Scrooby, Eng., 53, 56, 57, 58, 61, 62. 

Scrooby Church, 53, 58, 60, 325; 
leaders of, 62-80; Clyfton first 
pastor of, 63 ; Robinson pastor of, 
78, 79. 

Scrooby fellowship, members of, 62- 
80; character of, 81, 85; persecu- 
tion of, 87 ; resolve to emigrate, 88 ; 
hindrances to emigration of, 89; 
fail to leave England as a body, 90, 
92; arrival in Holland, 94; at 
Amsterdam, 97 seq.; their reasons 
for leaving Amsterdam, 102, 110; 
petition to settle in Leyden, 112. 
See Leyden fellowship. Pilgrim 
Fathers, and Pljonouth colonists. 

Scurvy, prevalent among Pilgrims, 
231, 233. 

Scusset River, 276. 

Se-Baptist, Smji;h a, 107. 

Sea food. Pilgrims depend on, 216, 
258. 

Seed, 206, 207, 244. 

Seekonk, Mass., 399. 

Seeley, John Robert, 436. 

Seines used for fishing, 357. 

Selectmen of towns in Plymouth Col- 
ony, 377. 

Self-government, 198, 199, 363, 402- 
404, 406, 434. 

"Self-Love "(Cushman), 129. 



Separatism, 3, 6, 28, 46, 54. 
Separatist Church, Scrooby, 58, G2. 
Separatists, 8, 26, 54, 89, 98, 101, 102, 

103, 110, 111. 
"Sermon on the Mount," the, 84. 
Servants, 180, 454. 
"Seven Articles," the, 162, 163. 
Shallop, repairing of the Mayflower's, 

201, 204, 209. 
Shares, apportionment of, 159, 264. 
Sheep brought to Plymouth, 255, 257. 
Shell-fish, a staple of living, 247, 248. 
Sherley. See Snirley. 
Ship-building, the first, 283. 
Ships. See Mayflower, Speedwell, 

etc. 

Shirley, , 254, 281. 

Sickness, at sea, 188; at Cape Cod, 

218, 219; at Plymouth, 180. 229- 

235, 239, 247; at Boston, 257; 

among Indians, 291 ; among early 

explorers, 233. 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 23, 25. 
Sipican, lands at, 357. 
Skins, 296. See Furs, Beaver, Otter, 

etc. 
Slander, charges of, 371, 372, 383. 
Slaney, John, 298. 
Slaves, Indian, 292, 298, 318, 319. 
Smith, Goldwin, on Maj'flower Com- 
pact, 198. 
Smith, Capt., John, 189, 218, 254. 
Smith, Ralph (Rev.), 334-336, 343; 

first pastor of Plymouth Church, 

335. 
Smyth, John, 76, 102, 106-108. 
Snow, 204, 205. 
"So-and-So," Captain, aids Pilgrims, 

246. 
Society of Friends, 384. See Quakers. 
Somersetshire, Eng., 33. 
Soule, George, 199, 258, 345. 
Southampton, Eng., 171, 173, 175. 
Southwark. See London. 
Southwick, Cassandra, 389. 
Southwick, Lawrence, 389. 
Southworth, Constant, 285. 
Southwortii, Thomas, 123, 285, 398. 
Sowams, 300, 302, 303, 308. See 

Warren, R. I. 
Speedwell, the ship, 162, 168, 183, 

184; number on board of, 166; 

springs a leak, 175, 176; aban- 
doned, 177. 
Spencer, 23. 



31 



482 



INDEX 



Sports, other Pilgrims', 309. 

Springfield, Mass., Indians attack, 
419. 

Springs of water found on Cape Cod, 
203. 

Squanto, 181, 297-300, 301, 302, 305, 
306, 307, 313. 

"St." See Saint. 

Standish, Alexander, 132. 

Standish, Capt. Miles, 124, 130-133, 
166, 208, 217, 232, 256, 257, 258, 
265, 271, 293, 301, 306, 309, 345, 
371, 411; leads first exploration, 
201; visits England, 269; leads 
expedition to Corbitant, 308 ; leads 
expedition against Indians, 315. 

Statutes, 365, 366. 

Staves, 183, 266. 

Steele, , v, 65. 

Steen, Jan, 118. 

Stocks for culprits, 371. 

"Story of the Pilgrim Fathers" 
(Ar'ber), 26. 

Street, Nicholas (Rev.), 349. 

Streets. See Leyden, St. Ursula, etc. 

"Strong water," 295, 296, 301. 

"Study Hill," 420. 

Sudbury, Mass., Indians attack, 420. 

Suffolk, Eng., Separatism in, 6. 

Surgeon. See Samuel Fuller. 

Swan, the ship, 299. 

Swansea, Mass., 285, 415, 419. 

Swine, brought to Plymouth Colony, 
254, 255, 274. 

Sylvester, , 383. 

Taunton, Mass., 346, 349, S73, 419, 

421. 
Taxes fixed by governor, 429. 

Taylor, , 34. 

Testaments, 25, 43, 440, 441, 444, 

445. 

Thacher, , v, 256, 338, 357, 433. 

Thacker, Ehas, 25. 
Thanksgiving Day, 308, 309, 310. 
"Thievish Harbor," 209. 
"Thirty-Nine Articles," the, 22. 
Thu-ty Years' War, the, 150. 
Thomas, William, 179, 283. 
Thompson, Edward, 218. 
Tilley, Edward, 201, 208, 209. 
Tilley, Elizabeth, 187. 
Tilley, John, 208. 
Timber, cut for building, 228. 
Titles, land, 319, 428. 



Tobacco, found in Indian mounds, 

207. 
Tools taken by the Indians, 293, 296. 
Torture, 289, 381. 
Tower of London, Rose imprisoned 

in, 44. 
Towii-meetings, 428. 
Towns in Plymouth Colony, 373, 395, 

410 ; attacked by Indians, 419-422. 
Trade, 285 ; monopoly of, 273 ; with 

Indians, 247, 273, 277, 279, 456; 

with Bay Colony, 257 ; with Man- 
hattan, 274, 284; expansion of, 

276; on the Kennebec, 277; on 

the Penobscot, 279, 284. 
Trading-house, at Manomet, 276 ; on 

the Kennebec, 277, 279, 284; on 

the Penobscot, 279, 284. 
Trap, deer-, Indian Bradford caught 

in, 203. 
Treason, a capital crime, 370. 
Treasurer, 179, 183, 375. 
Treat, Gov. Robert (Conn.), 320, 

430. 
Treat, Samuel (Rev.), 320, 348. 
Treaty with Massasoit, 301. 
Trevor, — — , sailor, 178. 
Trousers, Irish, 296. 
Trowbridge, Rev. J. P., 170. 
TrumbuU, J. Hammond, 362, 370, 

382. 
Turkeys, wild, 244, 258. 

Turner, Capt. , 420. 

Turner's Falls, Mass., 420. 
Tyburn, prison, 25. 
"Tying up" culprits, 371, 389. 
Tyndale, 6, 7, 8. 

Underhill, , 343. 

United Colonies of New England, 

386, 395, 397, 398. 
University. See Leyden. 
Upsall, Nicholas, 387. 

Venison, 258. See Deer. 

Veto, the popular, 375. 

Vices, social, 453, 454, 455. 

Virginia, 153, 233, 326. 370, 382, 387. 

Virginia companies, 154. See Coun- 
cil for N. E., London Virginia 
Company, and PljTiiouth Virginia 
Company. 

Vocations of Pilgrims in Leyden, 122. 

Voting, 376. 

Voyage, the Mayflower's, 186 seq. 



INDEX 



483 



Wadsworth, Capt. , 420. 

Walker, Williston, 9 ; on Anabaptists, 
10. 

Walloons, 9. 

Wampanoags, the, 288, 300, 417, 422. 

Wampum, 275, 277, 279. 

War-footing of United Colonies, 397, 
398. 

Warren, R. I., 300, 303. -See Sowams. 

Warren, Richard, 208. 

Warrick, Earl of, 277. 

Warrick patent, the, 277, 278. 

Washing clothes at Provincetovm, 
201. 

Washington, Booker T., 18. 

Washington, George, on schools, 352. 

Water, drinking, 203, 208, 216, 224, 
225 254. 

Watson's Hill, 301. 

Waymouth, , 189. 

Webster, Daniel, 436. 

Wellfleet Bay, 209, 210. 

Wessagiisset, 133, 312, 317, 411. -See 
Weymouth. 

West Tower, 118. 

Westminster, 21. 

Weston, Thomas, 157, 158, 159, 161, 
162, 179, 249, 265 ; at Southamp- 
ton, 172 ; his colony at Weymouth, 
247, 249, 312. 

WejTuouth, Capt. George, 298. 

Weymouth, Mass., 315; destitution 
of Weston's people at, 247, 312, 
317 ; abuse of Indians at, 312. -See 
Wessagusset. 

Wharf, the first at Plymouth, 181. 

Wheat, Pilgrims raise, 244, 258. 

Whipping, 372, 386, 388, 389. 

Whipping-post, 371. 

White, Peregrine, 188, 229, 345. 

White, Resolved, 258. 

White, WiUiam, 180. 

White Lion, prison, 55. 

Whitgift, , 22, 37. 

Whittier, John G., 32, 384. 

Wigwams, Indian, 206. 

Willet, Thomas, 279, 284. 

William III (prince of Orange), 426. 

Williams, Roger, 72, 336, 337, 343, 
347, 465. 

Wills, probate of, 366. 



Wilson, , 123. 

Wilson, John (Rev.), 336, 343, 347. 

Wilson, Woodrow, 242. 

Winslow, Gov. Edward (Pilgrim), v, 
124, 125, 126, 130, 146, 162, 166, 
199, 208, 237, 242, 246, 271, 277, 
288, 301, 330, 354, 403, 405; on 
leaving Holland, 168; visits Eng- 
land, 254, 268, 337 ; visits Massa- 
soit, 302, 308, 313; on Thanks- 
giving Day, 309; on Indians, 310; 
on Indian conspiracy, 315; re- 
moves to Marshfield, 345. 

Winslow, Gov. Josiah, 288, 354, 398, 
405; on purchases of land from 
Indians, 320. 

Winslow, Susana White (2d Mrs. 
Edward), 258. 

Winsor, Justin, v; on Miles Standish, 
131. 

Winters, 223 seq., 245, 247. 

Winthrop, Gov. John, 257, 398; 
visits Plymouth, 343; a colonial 
commissioner, 397. 

Wiswell, Ichabod (Rev.), 348, 429, 
432. 

Witchcraft, 370, 381, 382, 383. 

Witches, 380-391 ; burning of, 382. 

Wituwamat, killed, 316. 

Wives, deaths among Pilgrim, 232. 

Wolcott, Roger, 222, 436. 

Wolsey, Cardinal, 59. 

Wolves, 236, 257. 

Women, the Pilgrim, 231, 232, 243. 

' ' Wonder-Working Providence ' ' 
(Johnson), 173. 

Wood Street Counter, prison, 55. 

Woodworth, Mehitabel, 383. 

Woohnan, , 384. 

Worcester, Eng., diocese of, 32. 

Wordsworth, WiUiam, 32. 

Wright, WiUiam, 257. 

Wycliffe, 2, 4, 5, 12, 14. 

Yarmouth, Mass., 340, 373. 
Young, Alexander, v, 288. 

Zealand, 39. 

Zurich, 2. 
Zwingli, 2. 



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